On 26 October 2020, a 14-year-old girl died of internal bleeding a month after her marriage to a 34-year-old man. Her poverty-stricken family had taken her out of school and married her off because they could no longer afford to educate and feed her. She had told her mother-in-law that she had been bleeding since her wedding night. At the hospital, she told her grandfather that she had repeatedly begged her husband to stop but he had told her bleeding was “normal". Her marriage had not been formally registered because of her age.

This article is about such girls like Nurnahar who never got to grow up, the consequence of child marriages, the contributing factors, and the laws meant to protect children but failing to do so. It shows that there are other factors that contribute to the insecure, violent life of a child bride much of which stems from an insecure society and lack of legal recourse.

 CHILD BRIDES: THE STATISTICS

The statistics on child marriage in Bangladesh from the UNICEF report of 2020 are alarming:

• Bangladesh has 38 million child brides. Of these, 13 million were married before the age of 15. More than half of women were married before their 18th birthday. Furthermore, half of child brides give birth before the age of 18—eight in 10 before the age of 20.

• Bangladesh ranks among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest level of child marriages. Nearly one in three child brides have spouses at least 10 years older than them. Furthermore, child brides are less likely to have secondary school education. The prevalence rate falls among those with 12 years of schooling.

• Child brides are more likely to justify domestic violence. Furthermore, there is widespread gender discrimination against girls: when money is short, it is the daughters who are pulled out of school; daughters receive less education than sons in rural areas. Some girls are still not sent to school because parents cannot afford to send all children.

Since 2020, Bangladesh has been suffering through the COVID-19 pandemic and this has resulted in a decline in the socio-economic structure and is a contributing factor to an increase in child marriages. According to a report:

BRAC [an NGO] prevented 670 child marriages in 2019 and 1,091 in 2020 through persuasion and education efforts. Meanwhile, there were 167 additional attempts at child marriage in 2019 and 292 in 2020. There were 22 child marriage attempts in the last three months, according to BRAC data obtained by Anadolu Agency. An assessment report on March 11 by the Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), said at least 13,886 girls in 21 districts were victims of child marriages between April and October of 2020. Of the total, 48% were between 13 and 15 years old. MJF conducted the study in association with the UN Population Fund, UNICEF and Plan International Bangladesh.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

There are several social and economic factors that contribute to the prevalence of child marriage in Bangladesh.

            Poverty

According to the Asian Development Bank and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 21.8% of the population of Bangladesh lived below the poverty line in 2018. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many who lived close to the poverty line in 2018, such as day labourers, construction workers, and others who earned a small daily wage, have lost their main source of income. This has contributed to an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line in 2020. According to the government’s General Economic Division, poverty levels rose to 29.5% in June 2020.  However, this figure does not include those who live in abject poverty and earn less than one US dollar per day. The division also predicts that the country will have 16.4 million new poor in 2020.

In January 2020, Al Jazeera presented a documentary where it was stated that one out of five people in Bangladesh live below the poverty line and that the average wage for the poor was less than five US dollars per day. For a country of 164.7 million people, that represents a huge number of people. For many of those people, marrying off the daughter means one less mouth to feed and body to clothe. The quicker she is married off, the less financial stress on her family.

            Natural Disasters

Bangladesh is prone to several forms of natural disasters, including cyclones, flooding, and river erosion. These and other calamities throw poor, struggling families into deeper poverty due to loss of homes, livestock and land. This makes families look for ways of lessening the financial burden—hence the need to marry off an underaged daughter.

            Harassment and social pressure

The rates of violence against women and girls in Bangladesh is very high. A dysfunctional criminal justice system, corruption, the inability to see domestic violence as a criminal offence (and consider it more as a social issue) all play a contributing role in the high rates, egged on by a patriarchal social structure. According to recent data from the human rights organization Odhikar, between January and March 2021, there were 184 reported incidents of the rape perpetrated against girls below the age of 18. In 2020, there were a total of 919 reported incidents of rape of girls below the age of 18 in the whole year. Stalking and harassment are also very common occurrences, often leading to rape and physical violence such as acid attacks. Considering that incidents of sexual violence are a taboo topic in Bangladeshi society, it is safe to assume that there have been more violations than reported. When a daughter is being stalked or faces sexual harassment, families think it best to marry her off so that she has the badge of a “wife” and, therefore, will not be harassed or raped because she is protected by her husband. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

            Dowry

Dowry is another bane troubling women in Bangladesh and one of the main reasons for domestic violence. It is unlawful for the groom or his family to ask for money or goods from the bride’s family as a show of gratitude for marrying their daughter. However, this practice still continues, especially in low income and rural areas, although dowry-related violence has occurred across all socio-economic levels. It has been observed that the younger the bride, the harder her parents can bargain to bring down the dowry amount. An NGO worker in Sirajganj said:

Child marriage happens mostly because of economic reasons, because people are so poor and feel if they get their daughter married younger they can pay less dowry, but then they get more problems, because there is more divorce and more pressure on girls for more dowry [after they’ve married].

            Stopping of School and Education

Many girls have had to stop going to school due to reasons such as poverty, harassment, and sexual violence. This stoppage of education creates new threats for girls and makes them more vulnerable to child marriages. The current pandemic has closed educational institutions and many families are facing economic hardship and loss of income. This has caused a rise in child marriages. To tackle the rise in child marriages, the Bangladeshi government has set up a helpline for people to notify police of child marriages. However, there is no follow-up done to ensure whether the marriage was actually not carried out and whether the child is safe. Anna Minj, BRAC-CEP director, told Anadolu Agency:

Child marriage has become manifold during the COVID-19 pandemic and it continues to rise. And, only 20% of incidents of child marriage are reported or we usually come to know, while the rest of the incidents are conducted secretly, keeping officials in the dark.

THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Bangladesh has several laws aimed at protecting girls and even to an extent barring child marriages. However, these laws need revision as their implementation has usually been unsuccessful. The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1929 and remained in force in Bangladesh until a new act was recently passed. According to the Act of 1929, the minimum age for marriage of a female was 18 years and 21 years for a male. In today’s terms, this in itself looks to be too young an age to get married. Due to various factors, this law did not stop or prevent child marriages itself. The Act was amended in 2017 with disastrous results. The amendment was made to the minimum age of marriage. While keeping the minimum age of marriage for girls at 18 years, the Act was amended to include that girls below the age of 18 could be married off under “special circumstances”. Section 19 of the Act of 2017 states:

Notwithstanding anything contained in any other provision of this Act, if a marriage is solemnised in such manner and under such special circumstances as may be prescribed by rules in the best interests of the minor, at the directions of the court and with consent of the parents or the guardian of the minor, as the case may be, it shall not be deemed to be an offence under this Act.

Unfortunately, what these “special circumstances” are remains vague and undefined. One of the reasons given for this provision was that if a girl is raped and becomes pregnant, then to preserve her dignity, the only option was to marry her off (to her rapist, presumably). Similarly, one of the reasons for child marriages is the frequent sexual harassment and stalking of young girls. For their “protection” they are married off. Instead of ensuring that strong social and legal safeguards protect women and girls from sexual abuse and rape, it is easier to marry them off to preserve their “dignity” while the the rapists avoid punishment.

The Suppression of Repression against Women and Children Act 2000 is a law that was enacted specifically to protect women and children from crimes such as rape, sexual harassment, dowry violence, and human trafficking. However, this law has proved ineffective because it does not pay much heed in preventing potential incidents of rape. Section 10 of the Act contains an archaic definition of “sexual harassment” as touching or using any object to touch or penetrate the sexual organs of a women to outrage her modesty and satisfy lust. The law does not contain a definition of “stalking” and reduces “sexual harassment” merely to the act of or attempting to touch a woman suggestively or make “gestures”. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh ordered that this section be amended to include a fuller definition of sexual harassment and stalking to ensure better protection for women and the prosecution of offenders. However, this amendment is yet to be made. Therefore, girls still cannot seek any legal protection under this law to protect them from stalkers.

The Dowry Prohibition Act is a law that makes the demanding, offering, or accepting of a dowry unlawful and a punishable offence. Unfortunately, a dowry is still considered a part of the marriage negotiations in many Bangladeshi communities for various reasons. Even if it is not demanded, the parents of many brides still worry whether their gifts to the groom will be enough to keep their daughter safe and happy. A girl not only becomes a victim of child marriage—but may also become a victim of “dowry violence” if dowry demands are not met or expectations are not satisfied. She is abused both by her husband and by her in-laws.

According to the Penal Code 1860, prevalent in Bangladesh, marital rape is not defined or included in the definition of rape found in section 375 of the Code. It is not even included in the Suppression of Repression against Women and Children Act 2000. In order to constitute the offence of rape, as per the Penal Code, five conditions must be met, including the commission of sexual intercourse against the women’s will or without her consent.

The fifth condition is that if a man has sexual intercourse with a women with or without her consent and she is under the age of 14, it will be considered rape. This law also says that sexual intercourse by a man with his wife will not be rape if the wife is over 13 years of age. This law essentially codifies the reality that child marriage is alright if the bride is over the age of 13. What is happening to child brides below 14 years of age is marital rape—but this is not defined nor dealt with in any criminal law. What we are also seeing in this law is that for rape the age of majority does not seem to be 18, but 14. This is a legal provision that needs immediate revision. 

The current reality is bleak. Though the rate of birth and marriage registrations have improved, when it comes to a child marriage, the marriage is either not registered (meaning a religious ceremony takes place but the marriage is not officially registered), or at the time of registration, the bride's age is falsified. While the Child Marriage Restraint Act is now allowing parents to marry off their girls below 18 under vague “special circumstances” and the laws on rape do not protect these girls from marital rape, where then is the legal protection for girls?

There is not one solution to stopping child marriages in Bangladesh. It is a socio-legal issue and needs to be dealt with as such. The social and economic factors that contribute to and encourage violence against women and girls as well as child marriages need to be addressed. The judiciary and law enforcement need to be more proactive and there needs to be in place a system of follow-ups and grassroots support for girls as well as their parents who are often pressured by external factors to marry off their children. Laws too need drastic amendment. The legal age of marriage should follow international norms. A child is any person below the age of 18 and nothing justifies marriage below that age.

Dr Saira Rahman Khan teaches Criminal Law at the School of Law, BRAC University, a private university in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is a British Chevening Scholar and completed her PhD in Socio-Legal Studies from the University of Kent, Canterbury in 1998. She is also a member of the Bangladesh Supreme Court Bar Association.