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Sunday | October 04, 2026 | Dhaka

Digital marriage, divorce records to enable nationwide verification: Asaduzzaman

 Staff Reporter
 Published: 12:01 AM, 04 October 2026

Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Md Asaduzzaman on Saturday said digital registration of marriages and divorces would make marital information easier to verify from anywhere in Bangladesh and even from abroad through an integrated database.

The proposed digital system would create a reliable and integrated record of marital relationships across the country, allowing authorities to monitor marriages and verify whether marriage-related laws were being properly enforced, the minister said.

He was speaking while inaugurating a 10-day training programme for nikah registrars on online registration of marriages and divorces and related matters at the BRAC Learning Centre (BLC) in the capital.

According to Asaduzzaman, the system would help determine how many marriages take place each year and identify whether child marriages are occurring.

He said online registration would also make it possible to check whether a person had been married before, how many marriages they had entered into and whether the required prior approval from the Arbitration Council had been obtained for a new marriage.

The minister said such verification could reduce the scope for people to conceal previous marriages, enter into secret marriages or later deny that a marriage had taken place. It would also allow prospective spouses to learn about a partner’s previous marriages before making a decision, he said, adding that the system would help reduce the prevalence of polygamy.

The government plans to gradually bring marriage registration data under an interoperable system linked with the National Identity Card (NID), birth registration and passport databases, among other government information systems.

Asaduzzaman said greater integration and interconnection among government databases would make it faster and more effective to verify citizens’ identities and relevant information.

“The world is rapidly moving towards technology-driven systems. Bangladesh must also move forward in line with this trend,” he said.

The training is being organised under a pilot project titled “Civil Registration and Vital Statistics: Development of ICT Infrastructure for Marriage and Divorce Registration”.
A total of 26 nikah registrars are participating in the training programme.

Law and Justice Division Secretary Liaquet Ali Molla chaired the inaugural function.

Additional Secretaries Md Khadem Ul Kayes and SM Ershadul Alam, Director General of the Directorate of Bangladesh Legal Aid Md Monjurul Hossain, Inspector General of the Directorate of Registration Shamima Afroze, Project Director Md Azizul Haque and BRAC Social Empowerment and Legal Protection Programme (SELP) Director Shashwatee Biplob, among others, attended the event.