Readers’ Voice

Stop child marriage

Child marriage is often the result of entrenched gender inequality, making girls disproportionately affected by the practice. Child marriage is also the result of the interplay of economic and social forces. Poverty, insecurity, social norms, low value accorded to girls, lack of access to education and patriarchal systems are some of the main causes of child marriage.
Child marriage alludes to any formal marriage or informal union between child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child. It violates children’s rights and places them at high risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. Child marriage also negatively affects the economy and leads to an intergenerational cycle of poverty. Girls and boys married as children more likely lack the skills, knowledge and job prospects needed to lift their families out of poverty and contribute to their country’s social and economic growth. Child brides are more likely to become pregnant before they physically mature to bear children, increasing risks of both maternal and newborn deaths and morbidity. Children who are married off are also vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.
Across the world, girls as young as 12 are being forced or tricked into marrying men who exploit them for sex, child domestic labour, which can also be considered as an “under-reported”, global form of human trafficking.
A child who marries at an earlier age is mostly dependent on his parents. This dependency remains intact after marriage and the burden on the parents mounts. Resultantly, the whole family condones the brunt of this dereliction. Apart from this, early marriage mostly encounters fiasco/debacles in the future.

Snigdha Srabony
Sonargaon