An initiative to empower early-married girls launched its awareness campaign week with a letter-reading session on 19 November.

Adolescent girls have already written letters, with many more to follow, detailing their plight and the campaign sets off with this intimate insight into their lives.

Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world, where 2,359,000 girls get married and become ‘adults’ overnight. According to a survey, almost seven out of ten girls in Bangladesh are married off before turning 18. It is fourth in terms of percentage and second in terms of the absolute number of adolescent girls married off every year.

According to a survey, almost 10% were mother of two children, 57% had given birth once and around 12% were pregnant. Despite the well-known fact that children of adolescents are chronically malnourished, the survey points that the vicious cycle is strongly at work here in rural Bangladesh.

As part of Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment (IMAGE), their letters will later be sent to Policy-makers urging them for intervention. While these letters are at the heart of the campaign, the ‘Week of the Married Girl Child’ will also feature video documentaries on the lives of such girls.

Thursday’s launch of the campaign week featured a letter reading session at the National Press Club. The day’s proceedings began with Farhana Jesmine Hasan, the IMAGE project manager introducing Arnob Chakrabarty, Managing Director of RedOrange Media & Communications who acted as the facilitator of the day. This was followed by Mahmudul Kabir, country director of Terre des Hommes Netherlands, welcoming everyone to the event.

The press conference also saw screening of audio visual material of the project including a television commercial and celebrity messages. Among other speakers at the event, there were Morium Nessa, National Coordinator for Child Protection with Terre des Hommes Lausanne, Md Rassel Ahmed Liton, Chief Executive of SKS Foundation, Shamim Ara Begum, Executive Director of Pollisree and Abdus Shahid Mahmood, Director of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF).

During the next seven days, there will also be seminars and newspaper supplements to advocate the issue of early married girls through media and civil society and eventually raise awareness.

Funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN), IMAGE works with early-married girls in three northern districts of Bangladesh. The project will strive to empower these girls from three unions of sadar upazilas of Nilphamari, Gaibandha and Kurigram. Since the girls are daughters-in-law, wives, mothers and children at the same time, their health and well-being are at risk. Their health rights are neither recognised nor protected. Their right to food is compromised by gender-based practices. They eat last and least. Yet, future generations depend on them. Families and communities rely on them. They run households, cook dinners, raise children, clean yards and care for the sick and the old. They deserve respect and support.

The negative impact of child marriage is acknowledged worldwide. Policies and programmes focus strongly on its prevention. It is necessary to protect the child rights of girls who are at risk of being married off. It is equally important to protect the rights of girls who have already been married off. 

This national level campaign is to focus on such girls. The week is meant to focus on this special group of children who become invisible overnight, neglected and unheard as soon as they are married off. 

With the Universal Children’s Day ahead on 20 November, IMAGE declares a full week for the married girl children focusing on their health and rights based on their letters calling upon everyone to save the married girls whose rights and potential are threatened every day.