Another girl gets her forced marriage stopped

In a latest incident of action against child marriage, the local administration in Jhenidah foiled the forced marriage of a 16-year-old girl on Wednesday night after she phoned the Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Kaliganj earlier in the day. The UNO, Sadekur Rahman, said the girl named Ratna Khatun, who appeared this year's SSC exams and was awaiting the results to be published on May 4, called them in the afternoon, seeking help. “I want to continue my studies and I am still too young to get married. But, my family is forcibly marrying me off. Please, help me,” he quoted the girl as saying. “We finally reached at the scene around 9:30pm with a team from Kaliganj police station and asked her father, Jakku Mia, to stop the procedure of the wedding immediately,” he continued. Last week, a Nurun Nahar Mili, a class X student, wrote to the UNO of Banaripara in Barisal to dissolve her April 14 marriage that took place against her will. In the wake of the letter, the upazila administration on Thursday sat with the the complainant, 14, her parents, school headmaster, and the local UP chairman and members to resolve the issue. On November 20 last year, Kalpana Shil, also 14, from Bashail in Tangail, too had managed to have her forced marriage stopped, following the help from local administration. Kalpana, then a ninth grader, had met Bashail Upazila Assistant Land Commissioner Nazmul Ahsan, seeking his intervention into the matter.