Plan International Bangladesh and Save the Children on behalf of the Child Rights Advocacy Coalition in Bangladesh urged the government to retain the minimum age of marriage for girls at 18 years in a press statement issued Thursday.
The statement said the minimum age for marriage of 18 years for girls fell under the government’s commitments to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to relevant national legislation including the National Child Policy 2011 and the Children Act 2014.
The organisations said any attempt to lower the age of marriage for girls would be untenable in the context of international conventions and national laws related to children’s rights and protection.
However, the organisations, through the statement, applauded the government for approving the draft Child Marriage Prevention Bill 2014 in principle. It said the provisions in the draft act for raising punishment for those who perform or facilitate child marriage up to two years of jail and a penalty of Tk50,000 was commendable.
They believed that stringent punishment would act as a deterrent and reinforce the efforts to prevent child marriage in Bangladesh.
Plan International, Save the Children and the Child Rights Advocacy Coalition believed that strengthening penalties for conducting and facilitating marriage involving children was only part of the solution.
It was also critical to increase public knowledge about the health, education and social impacts of child marriage. to eliminate the practice of requiring the family of the bride to pay highly expensive dowries, especially where the dowry increases with the age of the bride.
