Married Still a Child

Child marriage has been ingrained in the local culture of Bangladesh and is still prevalent. The main victims of child marriage are the girls who are, in a way, forced to become ‘women’ or ‘adults’. And almost instantaneously our collective psyche also shifts them from the bracket of ‘children’s rights’ to that of ‘women’s rights’. All of a sudden we seem to forget they are married still children.

Child marriage has not only affected children’s rights but also women’s rights. Although primarily affecting children, women carry the scourge of early marriage through their lives because it exposes them to a number of complications of life that they are not ready to handle.

Bangladesh is fourth in percentage terms of early marriage but in absolute number of married adolescent girls, it is second in the world only to India.

At one point these poor deprived girls turn into deprived women and thereafter turn into burdens for the nation and country. It is perhaps time for us to return the lost smile on the faces of our married girls. That is where the project Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment (IMAGE) comes in.

Since it is primarily the women and girls who are deprived of their rights in the social and family context of rural Bangladesh, it presents itself to be among the best avenues for ensuring the country’s development. The mother’s health and rights should be prioritised over everything else in order to ensure the family’s health as well as that of the child.

IMAGE intends improve the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Right of these young married children, based on a strategy of intertwined interventions and advocacy.  The project works with girls directly to improve their situation, while at the same time IMAGE reaches out to those who can have a positive impact on the lives of these married girls: health workers, policy makers, development partners, and of course society at large. We are all fathers, mothers, husbands and in-laws; together we are responsible for the children of Bangladesh.

The project will work directly with 4,500 girls of three northern districts of Bangladesh. Local implementing partners have identified 1,500 married adolescent girls from one union under the Sadar sub-districts of Nilphamari, Gaibandha and Kurigram. The goal of this project is to ensure that married adolescent girls have easier access to services and information related to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

Image will be working with the married adolescents, and at the same time seek to connect with the husbands, in-laws, parents, community leaders, opinion leaders and elected peoples’ representatives at the local level. There will be carefully selected and targeted messages for each of the demographic deemed significant as far as empowering the adolescent married girls are concerned.

The project will also conduct research, based on which civil society, celebrities, cultural and social activists, and news outlets at the national level will be engaged with the same goal in mind. The media will naturally include not just print but also online and electronic mediums such as television and radio.

Among other goals, Image seeks to develop 180 change-makers in the target sub-districts. There will be 90 girls (30 from each sub district) appointed as change-makers, who despite their fate will lead others to either have better lives or prevent child marriage altogether.

By the end of the project duration there will have been evidence based advocacy and knowledge management at the community, national and international level. The project also expects to be able to put in place effective communication channels in place to create social awareness on the SRHR of married girls.

The project, funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, initiated the campaign Week of the Married Girl Child, with a kick off press conference on Universal Children’s Day, November 20, 2015. Dedicated television programs on the married girl child have been broadcasted by RTV and Channel 24 on that same day, several newspaper and online articles were published by journalists who entered the IMAGE fellowship.

An online platform will be officially launched on social media by Dr. Shuchi Karim: www.marriedstillachild.org.