Say NO

In the midst of preparing for their Community Action Day on Domestic Violence and Child Marriage, we heard from a youth club member that there was a child marriage taking place in one of our working villages. The girl was allegedly 14 years old which gave knots in my stomach

Bangladesh has the 2nd highest rate of child marriage in the world. Currently the Bangladeshi government is trying to lower the legal marrying age of women from 18 to 16.  I’ve met so many passionate Bangladeshis who want people to abandon this practice and there are quite a few organizations operating around with the same purpose but on a land where girls are seen as burden and dowry gets higher as they get older, it isn’t that easy to eradicate. Change is definitely in the future but we have so much to do until we get there.

Youth Club Members are at the  wedding house

Saddened and frustrated by the news, we called the Emergency Child Marriage Helpline to find out what the next appropriate step should be. The person at the helpline requested some information about the girl who was getting married in order to be able to take an action. After liaising with Youth Club members who were at the wedding, we got all the required information. In the meantime, with the help of the project officer, we found the UNO’s number and called him about this illegal marriage which could only be stopped by their authority. UNO  assured that they would take the necessary steps immediately and appreciated our cooperation. As promised, UNO sent a group of policemen to the wedding house, stopped the marriage and arrested the bride’s brother who arranged this marriage.

UNO giving a speech at our CAD

The next day the UNO attended our Community Action Day and gave an inspirational speech on the prevention of Child Marriage and congratulated the ICS volunteers and Youth Club members for their dedication and determination on this issue. He invited everyone to report and take action against child marriage just as the young people of the community did.

Our placement is nearly coming to an end but we know that the work hasn’t been completed yet. The project will be running for another 8 months and we hope other teams will continue the work we have started and help community members take more action to prevent more girls from becoming brides, domestic violence and continue to empower women.