In 2013, Amena had just started fifth grade and brought home her new school textbooks. Just days later, she received news of her upcoming wedding.
“I must have been around 10 years old,” recalls Amena Akter, now 23, a resident of the remote char area of Majher Alga char in Kurigram.
Amena told Dhaka Tribune that though she had not understood what marriage really meant, she had known one thing: she would no longer be going to school.
“But I never realized that this one event would completely change the course of my life."
Majher Alga char, where Amena lives, is part of Kurigram’s most neglected region, Shahabiaralga union, which borders India to the east.
In 2013, when Amena was only 10, her family married her off to a middle-aged man from Anandabazar in Kurigram. After the wedding, her in-laws demanded a dowry of Tk2.5 lakh and sent her back to her parental home when the demand was not met.
At age 13, Amena was officially divorced.
"I returned to my parents' home after the divorce," Amena said.
"Many people would come to see me, stare at me when I went out, but I did not fully understand what had happened or why. About a year later, my father and brother called me and said, 'You can study now. We will sell our land if needed, but we will ensure you get an education.' Since my father and brother are farmers, we had little to live on besides the land. Encouraged by their promise, I re-enrolled in fifth grade that same year, and I have not had to look back since."
In 2015, Amena completed fifth grade and went on to finish secondary and higher secondary education at a local school in the humanities stream.
Currently, she is a second-year degree student at Govt Mir Ismail Hossain College in Rajarhat.
With the support of an NGO, she has opened a school for children in her area, where she teaches young children.
Asked if she had any regrets, Amena smiled and said she did not want to regret anything because her parents had not done anything wrong.
“We live in a region where eight out of 10 girls are married off as soon as they turn 10. If a girl somehow reaches the age of 16, finding a match becomes harder. Suitors often reject girls, saying they are too old, so families feel pressured to arrange marriages as early as possible. My family was no exception. If there had been schools and educational opportunities for girls, parents would not have felt compelled to marry off their daughters so young."
Amena also talks to parents in her community who understand that getting their daughters married at such a young age is not right.
But “what is the point of keeping a girl at home if she cannot continue her studies?” and “How will we arrange her marriage when she gets older?” are the questions she is usually faced with.
They often respond dismissively, saying just because something had happened to her did not mean the same would happen to everyone else. Frustrated, Amena sometimes just walks away.
“There are no schools in our char area. The schools around our char are very far apart. Of the 12 chars in our union, only six have a primary school, and those are about 12 to 16 kilometres away. The nearest school is 12km away. To get there, one has to walk 5-6km, then cross the river by boat and walk another 6km to reach the school.
“During the rainy season, there is no way to travel except by boat. Because of the risk of accidents, parents do not let their children go to school. As a result, about eight out of every 10 students drop out, and the dropout rate is even higher for girls. Since the [Covid-19] pandemic, this number has only increased.”
Amena’s school is currently closed following a road accident that left her injured.
"I have not been able to teach because of physical and mental health issues, and there is no one else to take over in my absence," she explained. "But I am recovering and hope to restart the school soon."
She said she believed education was the key to ending child marriage. "If more girls receive education, we can stop this practice… I want to finish my studies, get a government job and work against child marriage," she said, holding out hope for a better future.
Child marriage on the rise
Amena’s story is not unique. Nearly 50% of women in Bangladesh are victims of child marriage.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics’ Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2023 report published in February, the rate of child marriage has risen in Bangladesh.
Among girls under the age of 15, the marriage rate was 8.2% in 2023, up from 6.5% in 2022.
On the other hand, 41.6% of women were married off before the age of 18 in 2023, a rise from the previous year’s 40.9%.
According to BBS statistics (2019–2023), the rate of marriages under 18 years in Bangladesh was 41.1% in 2019, 31.3% in 2020, 37.08% in 2021, 40.9% in 2022 and 41.8% in 2023.
Similarly, the rate of marriage before the age of 15 was 6.2% in 2019, 4.9% in 2020, 4.7% in 2021, 6.5% in 2022 and 8.2% in 2023.
The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs has formed a 27-member national committee to combat child marriage, led by the ministry’s adviser, Sharmeen S Murshid.
The Department of Women Affairs is also implementing a project to end child marriage in 10 districts.
"We have launched various awareness programs, including one in schools called ‘Education First, Marriage Later: After 18 and 21.’ We are also distributing bicycles to girls in remote areas so they can attend school. Additionally, there are local committees even at the union level across the country working to prevent child marriage," says Keya Khan, director general of the Department of Women Affairs.
Brac study
According to a Brac study, more than 60% of families in Bangladesh still practice child marriage. In the last five years, girls in these families were often married off before turning 18. The study also found that 56% of girls who were married early had not completed secondary education.
Brac’s research further indicates that 6.9% of married girls were under 15. Additionally, 44% of parents cited the availability of “suitable” grooms as the reason for early marriage, while 18% mentioned poverty, 10% highlighted low dowry demands, 7% pointed to safety concerns, 6% said their daughters had not been doing well in school and 15% mentioned other reasons.
Child marriage has physical and mental health consequences too. Gynaecologists warn that girls, under 18 – 21 in some cases, are often unprepared for childbirth, which can lead to malnutrition and even result in the birth of children with disabilities.
Dr Taslima, a gynaecologist at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said early marriage could cause pregnancy-related complications, including uterine problems and even cancer.
Parents know the law
A survey by Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, covering over 2,000 families across municipalities, upazilas, unions and villages in 37 districts, found that among those affected by child marriage, 31% (260 individuals) are illiterate, 41% (347 individuals) are literate and 4% (33 individuals) have some level of education.
The survey highlights that 56% of guardians, aware of the laws against child marriage, have nonetheless married off their daughters, with 58% of these marriages being unregistered. Marriage registrars report that the child marriage rate in the country stands at 50%.
Fauzia Moslem, president of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, mentioned that during the Covid-19 period, surveys and observations had identified several reasons behind these child marriages, such as viewing daughters as burdens and believing that marrying them off fulfilled familial responsibility.
She said 56% of these families knew that child marriage was a punishable offence yet continued to falsify birth certificates to facilitate these marriages.
Addressing the prevention of child marriage, she stressed the need to increase girls’ educational attainment, amend Section 17 of the Child Marriage Restraint Act and ensure the implementation of laws.
She called for stricter punishment for those involved in child marriage and increased resources for the 27-member committee established to combat this issue.
Why laws alone are not enough
To combat child marriage, the erstwhile Bangladesh government repealed the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, enacting the updated Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2017.
Although sections 7, 8 and 9 of this law stipulate punishments for conducting child marriages, Section 19 is seen by human rights activists as providing a loophole.
Section 19 of the 2017 act states that notwithstanding other provisions if a marriage is conducted in the best interests of a minor under certain conditions, with parental or guardian consent and a court order, it will not be considered a violation of the act.
Rights activists have long opposed this section, viewing it as a means to enable child marriages. Advocate ZI Khan Panna, chairperson of Ain o Salish Kendra, said child marriage adversely impacted the future of girls and increased the infant mortality rate.
Early marriage often led to health complications during pregnancy and childbirth, sometimes resulting in the death of newborns, he added.
Panna said while the infant mortality rate had decreased, child marriage remained prevalent due to the lack of law enforcement and questioned the effectiveness of current laws.
He recommended repealing and re-evaluating Section 17 of the law, which, he said, legitimized child marriage.
Despite raising these concerns in various seminars and programs, they had yet to be addressed, the activist said.