State Minister for Women and Children affairs Meher Afroz Chumki, MP, Tuesday said child-marriage is one of the main impediments in women empowerment and implementation of the government’s vision-2021.
“Equal participation of women and their male counterparts in all the national development process could be ensured and Bangladesh could play an important role as a middle-income country if the child and adolescent marriages could be prevented,” she said while inaugurating a workshop.
The Ministry of Women and Children affairs and the Unicef jointly organised the workshop on “Defining the steps to develop a national adolescent strategy” at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in the capital.
Calling upon the guardians to be more attentive towards their children of the 14-18 adolescent age group alongside taking more care of their children up to five years of age, the state minister said the mentality of male and female children should be built with conscience so that they could be prepared to face any situation.
“Giving emphasis on the significant matter, the government is going to formulate for the first time in the South-Asia the National Adolescent Strategy,” Chumki added.
Secretary to the Minister of Women and Children affairs Tariqul Islam chaired the inaugural session of the workshop in which Chief of Child Protection of the Unicef, Bangladesh Rose Anne Papavero presented the keynote paper on the topic.
Joint Secretary of the Women and Children affairs Ministry Ashrafunnessa and Deputy Country Representative of the Unicef, Bangladesh Louise Mvono were the discussants in the workshop.
The National Adolescent Strategy will be formulated incorporating the opinions of the participants of the workshop.
