According to the National Action Plan, the government aimed to reduce the rate of child marriage in Bangladesh by one-third within 2021. But that target could not be achieved. Rather, child marriage increased during the Covid period.
According to a UNFPA report published in 2023, 51 percent of girls in Bangladesh are married before the age of 18. This is the highest rate of child marriage among Asian countries. If the figures are like this, then isn’t the policy makers’ trumpeting of Bangladesh’s unstoppable progress in socio-economic aspects hollow?
Needless to say, the increase in child marriage increases the risk of underage pregnancy. Marriage of girls below 18 years of age is considered child marriage while mothers between 15 to 19 years of age are called teenage mothers.
A recent survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) revealed that 70 out of 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 in the country become mothers, Prothom Alo news published on Friday reported. According to the BBS survey, the rate of child marriage in 2018 was 30 percent. This rate will increase to 40.9 percent in 2022. Many blame the Covid situation for this increase as the school dropout rate among girls has increased during this period.