Online marriage registration will help prevent polygamy and child marriage by making it harder to conceal marital information, Law Minister Asaduzzaman said on Saturday.
He made the remarks while inaugurating a 10-day residential training program titled “Use of Software for Online Marriage and Divorce Registration and Related Issues” at the Brac Learning Centre in Dhaka.
The minister said information from the online marriage registration system would gradually be linked to the central servers of the National Identity Card, birth registration and passport databases.
He said all marriage registrars, or qazis, across the country would gradually be trained and brought under the digital registration system.
Asaduzzaman said the system would make it possible to check whether someone had concealed information about an existing marriage.
“If you search online using the person’s NID, their details will appear. If the person is found to be married, they can be asked to provide consent from the first wife,” he said.
He said the system would also help authorities monitor whether child marriages were taking place in different areas and ensure enforcement of the law against child marriage.
The minister said online registration of marriages and divorces would bring greater transparency and provide several other benefits.
He also said postings of sub-registrars across the country would soon be made through a lottery system to break the long-standing influence surrounding postings in Dhaka.
