B'desh home to 41.6 million child brides; legal gaps continue to undermine protection: UN review

Dhaka, October 14 (IANS): Bangladesh is home to around 41.6 million child brides, including 22.3 million who were married before the age of 15, according to a review by United Nations agencies.The review highlights the scale of the child marriage crisis in the South Asian nation with one of the world's highest prevalence rates.Nearly a decade after its enactment, Bangladesh's Child Marriage Restraint Act (CMRA), 2017, still faces significant challenges, with the UN agencies' review flagging legal loopholes, inconsistencies, and weak enforcement that undermine the law and calling for comprehensive reforms, local media reported.The review by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) identifies two major areas of concern -- flaws in the legal framework and failures in its implementation.The findings come amid persistently high rates of child marriage in Bangladesh, which has the highest prevalence in South Asia and ranks among the top 10 countries worldwide, Bangladesh's leading newspaper The Daily Star reported.While the CMRA penalises individuals involved in child marriages, it does not declare such marriages void. The law also allows underage marriages in unspecified "special circumstances" and contains provisions that are inconsistent with other legislation and children's rights.The report noted that child marriage prevention committees often fail to carry out their responsibilities, while officials lack adequate training and logistical assistance. Survivors, meanwhile, struggle to access shelters and legal aid, leaving girls most at risk without adequate protection under the law.Taslima Yasmin, an associate professor in the Department of Law at Dhaka University, acknowledged the weaknesses highlighted in the review, emphasising the need for legal reforms that prioritise social protection for victims alongside punitive measures."Child marriage is a social custom, and punishment alone cannot end it. We need social measures, policy interventions and community-level initiatives and amend the act accordingly," she told The Daily Star.According to the UN agencies' review, poverty, poor-quality education, disparities in access to schooling, harmful social and gender norms, and safety concerns continue to drive high child marriage rates in Bangladesh.It further pointed out that entrenched social attitudes, concerns about elopement and economic insecurity, especially in climate-affected and remote regions and urban slums, lead many families to see early marriage as a way to ease financial pressures and secure a better option for their daughters.The review identified Section 19 as another significant weakness in the law. The provision permits marriage before the age of 18 with court approval under "special circumstances", but it does not define what qualifies, "leaving the term dangerously open to misinterpretation and misuse".To address these shortcomings, the UNFPA and UNICEF recommend setting 18 as the minimum marriage age for both males and females and scrapping Section 19 altogether.They have further proposed that the existing act take precedence over any contradictory personal laws and customary practices in Bangladesh.