The draft of a law intended to choke off the high rate of child marriages in Bangladesh will be placed before cabinet on Monday, the top bureaucrat at the women and children affairs ministry said.
The Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014, drawn up by the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, comes after a Unicef report found that 74% of Bangladeshi girls under 18 years and an alarming 39% of girls under 15 years had been married off.
“We have finalised the draft and it will be placed for approval before the next cabinet meeting on Monday,” Tariqul Islam, the women and children affairs secretary, told the Dhaka Tribune over the telephone on Thursday.
Bangladesh has one of the highest number of under-15 child marriages in the world, according to the report published by Unicef in July this year.
Over 20% of girls married off by their 15th birthday become mothers of three or more children before reaching their 24th birthday, the report said.
These girls are less likely to receive proper medical care during pregnancy and child birth, and are not physically mature enough to give birth, which places both the mothers and their babies at risk.
Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association’s (BNWLA) executive director, advocate Salma Ali, said: “We have been campaigning about the intensity and consequences of child marriage, and pressing the government to formulate a law to prevent child marriage.”
She said the existing Child Marriage Act, 1929 was outdated and not effectively enforced.
The BNWLA executive director said the new law would require proper birth registration in order to determine the age of the parties to a marriage.
The proposed law criminalises child marriages, defined as any marriage involving a minor.
Males under 21 and females under 18 are considered minors under the proposed legislation.
The draft law proposes a maximum two-year jail sentence and Tk50,000 fine, or both, and a minimum sentence of six months and Tk10,000 fine, or both, for violations of the law.
Adults who wed minors, registrars who register marriages involving minors, parents or guardians who give their minor children or wards in marriage and officials who issue fake documents to conceal child marriages will be held culpable under the proposed law.
Any marriage proven to be a child marriage will be annulled. Victims of child marriage will be entitled to compensation by those held liable. The courts will settle compensations.
The draft law empowers upazila level administrators including upazila nirbahi officers, executive magistrates, upazila women affairs officers, upazila social welfare officers, upazila secondary education officers as well as officers-in-charge of local police stations to inform the courts about suspected child marriages.
The proposed legislation provides for the return of assets or gifts given during the wedding ceremony in the event that a marriage is annulled.
The draft law proposes the formation of a child marriage prevention committee charged with raising public awareness to prevent child marriages.
“We hope child marriages can be prevented by the enactment of a new law and we emphasise the implementation of the law,” the BNWLA head said.
