Taking responsibility of girl child ‘discomforting’ for society, families

Both society and families feel "discomfort" in taking responsibility of a girl child as soon as she is born, eminent rights activist Sultana Kamal has said. 

"A great revelation of this discomfort is child marriage," she said while addressing a virtual roundtable on "Strengthened Civil Society Protects and Promotes Women's Rights" organised by Netz Bangladesh in partnership with We Can, Dascoh Foundation, and The Daily Star.

Addressing as guest speaker, Kamal said many parents think they do not need to be responsible for their girl child once she is married off.

The very parents who are responsible for a girl child's birth do not want to take her responsibility once she is born, showing psychological and sociological issues, she said, adding the country is yet to make significant progress to overcome such barriers.

She said although there have been some "best practices" over the years in preventing child marriage, those are like "a drop of water in the ocean".

Kamal, a former adviser to the caretaker government, said the government is trying to shrink space for civil society organisations (CSO), which made it difficult for them to work against malpractices like child marriage.

People's "right to associate" is under threat, while the government is trying to "control" non-government organisations by formulating a new act, she added. Reducing risk is imperative to strengthen the role of CSOs, she further said.

Addressing the roundtable, speakers stressed for forming civil society committees at grassroots level to effectively fight domestic violence and child marriage.

Prof Sadeka Halim, dean of Dhaka University's social science faculty, said Bangladesh is still fourth globally in terms of child marriages.

Selina Ahmed, head of Brac Gender Justice and Diversity Programme, said multi-sectoral interventions as well as multi-stakeholders' engagement is required to fight gender-based violence.

Netz Executive Director Max Stille said occurrence of child marriage and domestic violence increased due to the economic crisis in Bangladesh amid the pandemic.

Shamima Begum, joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said police can take preventive measures, if they are informed prior to any incident of domestic violence or child marriage.

She urged everyone to use its hotline number "999" to inform police about crimes and offences.

Gender expert Sheepa Hafiza said forming civil society committees in rural areas could be an effective way to combat child marriage and domestic violence.

However, civil society members cannot work effectively if the state machineries are not being strengthened, she said.

Meghna Guhathakurta, executive director of Research Initiatives Bangladesh, said strong CSOs can play effective role in preventing child marriage.

Aroma Dutta, lawmaker from reserved seat; Abul Hossain, former director of the government's multi-sectoral programme on violence against women; Sharmin Islam, gender analyst at UNDP; Zinat Ara Haque, executive coordinator of We Can; and Assistant Prof Golam Sarwar of Dhaka University's law department, among others, addressed the roundtable.