BRAC’s Social Empowerment and Legal Protection (SELAP) Program conducted a survey titled ‘Born to be a Bride’ to understand the trends and causes of child marriage. The survey covered 50,000 families from 280 villages in 27 districts of the country during March and April this year.
According to the survey report, the marriage rate of girls under the age of 18 is about 45 percent, of which about 7 percent are under the age of 15. What is worrying is that 70 percent of teenage girls are at risk of child marriage.
Saswati Biplob, head and in-charge of BRAC’s SELP programme, told Prothom Alo that the survey highlights reasons beyond common beliefs about the causes of child marriage. Child marriage is primarily driven by social pressure and parental inclination to support the practice.
He stressed the need for the government to collaborate with NGOs to take various awareness-raising steps to prevent child marriage. This effort should involve various stakeholders including local public representatives, marriage registrars (Qazis) and Imams.