CHILD MARRIAGE BANGLADESH

PHOTOGRAPHS BY OMI FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH WATCH VIDEO

INTRODUCTION

Bangladesh has the fourth-highest rate of child marriage in the world after Niger, the Central African Republic, and Chad, according to the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF. In the period 2005 to 2013, according to UNICEF, 29 percent of girls in Bangladesh married before the age of 15 and 65 percent married before the age of 18. Child marriage around the world is associated with many harmful consequences, including health dangers associated with early pregnancy, lower educational achievement for girls who marry earlier, a higher incidence of spousal violence, and an increased likelihood of poverty.

In Bangladesh there are several factors driving the high rate of child marriage. Gender discrimination feeds social attitudes and customs that harm girls at every stage of their lives and fuel the country’s extremely high rate of child marriage. Desperate poverty remains a daily reality for many families in Bangladesh, and many parents see child marriage as their best option to safeguard the future of a daughter they feel they can neither feed nor educate nor protect. Bangladesh’s status as one of the countries in the world most affected by natural disasters and climate change adds an additional element of hardship to many families, especially those living in the most marginal and disaster-affected parts of the country.

Bangladesh’s government has responded to the growing attention to the harms linked to child marriage by promising swift action. At the July 2014 Girl Summit in London, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged to take steps to reduce child marriage in Bangladesh and to ultimately end it by 2041. She committed, by 2021, to end marriage for girls under 15 and reduce by more than one-third the number of girls between the ages of 15 and 18 who marry. As part of this effort, she pledged that her government would revise Bangladesh’s law which prohibits child marriage, the Child Marriage Restraint Act (CMRA), before 2015, develop a national plan of action on child marriage by the end of 2014, and take other steps to change social norms and engage civil society in the fight against child marriage.

Sheikh Hasina’s efforts to follow through on the commitments she made at the Girl Summit have already been marred by delay. One reason for this was a debacle over a proposal to revise the CMRA by changing the age of marriage in Bangladesh to 16 years old for girls and 18 years old for boys. This proposal was vigorously opposed by civil society activists in Bangladesh, as well as international experts. At the time of writing, the government still appears to be pushing forward with this proposal, while the process of reforming the law has been delayed. The development of a national plan of action on ending child marriage has also been delayed and is not complete at the time of writing.

The Bangladesh government’s high-level political commitment to end child marriage is a positive step. But it will not achieve its targets unless child marriage becomes a permanent priority for all parts of the government and is backed up by effective legislation, policies, and programs. 

POVERTY

Poverty was the factor most commonly cited by girls and family members as driving decisions to have girls marry when they were still children. Many of the families Human Rights Watch interviewed were living in such extreme poverty that the family simply did not have enough to eat and they arranged marriages for their daughters to have one less mouth to feed and in hopes that their daughter would be better fed in the home of her in-laws. Almost none of the extremely poor families interviewed by Human Rights Watch had received assistance from government aid programs.

Families interviewed by Human Rights Watch who were unable to make ends meet often saw girls as a burden. This view is linked to discriminatory gender roles in Bangladesh, as daughters are expected to go to live with their husband’s family as soon as they marry, while sons typically remain living with and helping to support their parents. This means parents are less willing to “invest” in a girl—when parents cannot afford to feed or educate all of their children, it is usually girls’ futures that are sacrificed first. 

“We were very poor – sometimes we would eat every two or three days,” Lucky C., married at 15, said. “Even though they really wanted all three of their daughters to study it wasn’t possible, so they got me married.”

NATURAL DISASTERS

Natural disasters in Bangladesh, and the lack of an adequate government safety net for families affected by them, compound the poverty that drives child marriage. Bangladesh’s geo-physical location makes it prone to frequent and sometimes extreme natural disasters, including cyclones, floods, river bank erosion, and earthquakes, which cause widespread loss of life and property damage.

Human Rights Watch found that families’ anticipation of losing their land and homes to river erosion contributed directly to decisions by some families to marry their girls at young ages. Many families also struggled with frequent flooding which destroyed their crops, sometimes several times a year, creating a constant battle for survival for many poor families. Regular flooding keeps families extremely poor and drives decisions about schooling and marriages for their children.

“Because of river erosion people think girls are a burden for their family, so if someone wants to marry a girl they don’t wait,” an NGO worker explained. “Families think that if their house goes they’ll have to go to another place and it will take time to get established and find a husband and meanwhile the girl is getting older and dowry is going up.”

EDUCATION

There is a strong connection between access to education and child marriage in Bangladesh. Many of the girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch explained that they were married as soon as their families could no longer afford to educate them. Access to education is a struggle for all poor children in Bangladesh, but gender discrimination means that girls face specific obstacles. Parents often see their daughters as a burden because girls will leave the family when they marry and go to live with their husband’s family. This may result in families with limited means prioritizing education for their sons over education for their daughters, particularly at the secondary level and higher.

One of Bangladesh’s greatest development successes is the increase in enrollment of both boys and girls in primary education. By secondary school, however, attendance rates have fallen and the dropout rate by grade five is about 50 percent. Even for children who are in grades or schools where there are no tuition fees, there are associated costs for exam fees, supplies, and uniforms. For many of the poor families interviewed by Human Rights Watch, even the smallest associated costs put education out of reach of their children.

“My parents thought they would marry the girls off so at least they could afford to send the son to school,” said Bibi M., who left school and was married at age 14 to a 23 or 24-year-old man. 

SOCIAL PRESSURE AND HARASSMENT

In communities where child marriage is the norm, many girls and parents cited social pressure as a key factor driving child marriage. Human Rights Watch found strong social pressures to get girls married, in part to prevent them from having a romantic or sexual relationship before marriage. There is also great stigma attached to “love marriages.” The importance attached to a girl’s reputation and the fragility of that reputation means that a girl’s future can easily be damaged simply by rumors.

A significant minority of women and girls told Human Rights Watch that their parents had tried to resist marrying them as children but had later agreed to marriages as a result of harassment or threats, including threats of abduction, or even assault. Families facing these threats felt that they had little or no ability to obtain help and protection from police or other local government officials, even when the behavior clearly constituted a crime.

A significant minority of women and girls told Human Rights Watch that their parents had tried to resist marrying them as children but had later agreed to marriages as a result of harassment or threats, including threats of abduction, or even assault. Families facing these threats felt that they had little or no ability to obtain help and protection from police or other local government officials, even when the behavior clearly constituted a crime.

While NGOs have reached some communities with awareness raising efforts about the risks of child marriage, such efforts by the government are noticeably absent. Attempts by some government officials and police to make communities aware that child marriage is illegal are undermined by community members’ experiences of local government officials frequently facilitating child marriages by providing forged birth certificates in exchange for bribes.

 “We had to get her married to save our respect,” Dipanjali B. said, explaining why she arranged her daughter’s marriage at 17. “She was very pretty and people were threatening to kidnap her and every time she went to school she was harassed.” 

DOWRY

The practice of a bride’s family paying a “dowry” to the groom’s family, in the form of cash, jewelry, or goods, creates incentives for poor families to marry off their daughters earlier because dowry is lower or may be waived completely for very young brides. It also constitutes a form of gender discrimination that further impoverishes poor families who have daughters, and disputes about dowry payments can lead to domestic violence against girls and women.

A 1980 law banned the the payment of dowry to the groom’s family by the family of the bride. In spite of this, the payment of dowry remains widespread in Bangladesh. So entrenched is the practice of dowry that several parents told Human Rights Watch that they had insisted on paying dowry for their daughter even when it wasn’t demanded, believing that the girl would be valued more highly and treated better by her in-laws if she came with a dowry. 

“Now she is pretty and young and we can give her away for free. If you bring the police we will have more problems when she gets older.” – Ruhana M.’s older brother, arguing for why Ruhana should marry at age 12, after her uncle opposed the marriage. The marriage went forward.

Resources

Research:
Heather Barr

Photography:
Omi for Human Rights Watch

Cinematography:
Mariam Dwedar

Interviews & Field Production:
Emma Daly

Produced by the Human Rights Watch Documentary Video Team:
Director: Veronica Matushaj
Editor: Alison Amron
Producer: Elena Testi
Assistant Producer: J. Chen
Design Manager: Ivy Shen

Design: Fruitmachine