Keeping Up Momentum of the Dialogue on Child Marriage
Share-Net Bangladesh participated at the ‘SRHR and Nutrition Collaboration Fair’ organised by ActionAid Bangladesh on 19th June, 2019 at Spectra Convention Centre, Gulshan. Representatives and participants from RedOrange Media and Communications, World Vision, Shushilan, Max Foundation, Nears, UNICEF and many other organisations working intensively on SRHR and Nutrition were present at the event. Community members, leaders from grassroots organisations, and beneficiaries of the project MMWW (Making Market Work for Women) were also present.
The event was inaugurated by Chief Guest Muhammad Abdul Malik, Directorate General of Family Planning, Special Guests- His Excellency Harry Verweij, Honourable Ambassador, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Arnob Chakrabarty, Managing Director, RedOrange Media and Communications, Rakesh Katal, Chief of Party, World Vision and other distinguished guests.
His Excellency Harry Verweij elaborated the importance of ‘Expand Brand Stand’, encouraging everybody to Expand their trade and development relationship within Bangladesh as well as abroad, to Brand Bangladesh by letting more people in the world, particularly Europe know about this country, and to Stand out of the rest.
Arnob Chakrabarty spoke about the importance of nutrition for mothers and their children in Bangladesh, especially in rural areas such as Chhatak Upazila in Sylhet where half of the children under the age of five are suffering from stunted growth. He elaborated the role of media and communications in bringing about behavioral changes.
Share-Net Bangladesh organised a plenary discussion at the event on the subject of Child Marriage in Bangladesh with the aim of keeping up with the momentum on the discussion about the subject. Practitioners who are working extensively to prevent child marriage from UNICEF, Population Council and NGCAF discussed their projects, learnings and recommendations. The session was moderated by Imrul Hasan Khan, Director- Programmes and Operations, RedOrange Media and Communications.
Anika Binte Habib, Coordinator, Share-Net Bangladesh, gave a presentation to introduce everyone to Share-Net International’s Rapid Improvement Model which is a model to use Collaborative Approach with a focus on experimenting with strategies for moving newly acquired knowledge towards policy influencing and improving practice and spread this experience across Share-Net Country Hubs. The aim of the collaborative approach in Bangladesh is to share and apply knowledge about the most effective strategies that contribute to successful knowledge gathering, translation and sharing on child marriage issues in Bangladesh.
Dr Farhana Shams Shumi, Health Officer, UNICEF, spoke about 5 implementation strategies adopted by the Government of Bangladesh to eliminate child marriage by 2021. Based on the traditional norm of marrying off girls after menarche, the social effects of menstruation on a girl’s daily life is one of the many reasons behind child marriage. According to UNICEF’s annual report 2015, only 6% schools were estimated to have menstrual hygiene facilities. In the rest of the schools, many girls remained absent for at least 5 days in a month. ‘Routine absenteeism leads to poor academic performance and low self-esteem that negatively impact upon learning outcomes and eventually contribute to the growing numbers of adolescent girls dropping out of school’.
Masuma Billah, Programme Manager, Population Council, stated that building skills in adolescent girls can play a huge role in reducing child marriage. The council’s approach in reducing child marriage involves: building adolescent girls’ centred programmes, creating culturally acceptable skill building programmes, providing alternative options for girls and their families and considering girls as social, economic and cognitive ‘assets’.
Nasima Akhter, Secretary, National Girl Child Advocacy Forum, introduced the mission of their organisation which is to ‘raise awareness among parents, family members, the community, policy makers and all stakeholders in order to prevent the subjugation of girl children and women to establish their rights; also to create a social movement to combat the subjugation of women and girl children.’ Some of their strategies to accomplish their mission are to improve access to formal education for girls, to mobilize communities to transform social norms that are detrimental to achieving gender equity (grass-roots level advocacy) and to create an enabling legal and policy environment (focus on preventing child marriage and GBV) to protect girl children (policy level advocacy).
The discussion was followed by an interactive question and answer session where members from the audience put forward their thoughts, suggestions and recommendations.
Share-Net Bangladesh put up a stall at the fair where its publication ‘Highlights of Initiatives to Address Child Marriage in Bangladesh’ was displayed and distributed.
