Making A Difference
Monufa's Victory
A brave determined Monufa with her class mates.
There is hardly anything unusual about 15-year-old Monufa Akhtar. A student of class nine, she dresses simply-her father is a day labourer and struggles to make ends meet. Monufa helps her mother with the cooking and other household chores - usual for any village girl.
But in a matter of weeks, Monufa has become the talk of the village-her sharp mind and courageous soul has earned her much respect. She has managed to stop her marriage with her intelligence and determination to keep studying.
Eldest daughter of day labourer Abdul Mannan (45) and housewife Rezia Begum (40) of remote Balapara village of Koimari union under Jaldhaka upazila, Monufa Akhtar has two sisters and three brothers. She went to Todua Para Primary School and then got enrolled into Balapara Gabrol Kachhari Girls' high school in 2011. She got admitted to class eight. From childhood her only dream was to study, to grow up and get a job so that all her parents worries would be over and the family could live a decent life.
Her parents couldn't afford private tutoring but Monufa managed to always be on the merit list; her teachers were happy with her work. At home, after all her chores were done she would catch up on her school work.
But Monufa's father was haunted by the prospect of having to come up with the dowry he could not afford, to get his two daughters married. Without telling anyone, he started to look for a husband - an older man or a divorcee who would not demand a very high dowry for his teenaged daughter.
Finally, he found Abdul Wahed (32), a day labourer of neighbouring Ranochandi village of Kishoreganj upazila who was divorced and wanted to marry again. Without getting Monufa's consent, he arranged her marriage to a man who was more than double her age. Monufa, then a student of class nine was devastated when she heard about her father's plan. She didn't want to marry before completing her education. She pleaded with her relatives and neighbours to persuade her father not to go ahead with the marriage but her father turned them down.
Mustering up enough courage, Monufa pleaded with her father-but in vain. No amount of crying and begging could change his stance. It was for her own good, he said.
Finding no way, she brought the matter to the notice of the headmaster of her school who came to meet her father Abdul Mannan at home. He requested Abdul mannan not to marry off Monufa and let her continue her education. But her father was adamant about the marriage. He asked the headmaster – who would take responsibility if anything bad happened to Monufa-in other words if her reputation was tarnished while she was unmarried. In villages like theirs, a woman's honour was everything, much more important than her dreams. Monufa tried to shave her head to look ugly so her prospective groom would reject her. But her mother stopped her from doing this.
It was then that Monufa met Julekha from the same village. Julekha was a member of children's' organisation 'Paschim Koimari Dolon Chanpa Sishu Sangothon' ‘working as a volunteer to prevent child marriage and early drop out from school. Members of the organisation met the chairman of Koimari union parishad and sought his help. The chairman, along with organisation members went to Monufa's house to request Abdul Mannan to stop his daughter's early marriage. But he (Mannan) did not pay heed to their words and behaved roughly with them. As their effort was about to fail, the chairman warned him saying that he would sue him in court if he (Mannan) did not change his decision to marry off his underage daughter before attaining maturity.
This warning worked well and Mannan though unhappy, did not dare to go ahead with his decision and abandoned his plan to marry off his daughter.
Ecstatic, Monufa got a new lease on life and started going to school with new vigor. But now another battle was brewing: her father forbade her to go to school, refusing to pay for her educational expenses and saying it was meaningless for the daughter of a poor man to go to school. Monufa stopped going to school half way into her ninth grade.
Monufa was disappointed but not disheartened. She began to work as a farm hand and started learning how to sew and soon got orders for clothes from women in her village. Without a sewing machine, she had to rely on women who owned sewing machines which meant she had to give half of her earnings to them to pay for the use of the machine. Her struggles paid off and by 2013 she was readmitted to school.
Now Monufa is a student of class nine and bears all academic expenses with her own income. Her father no longer tries to stop her from going to school and from pursuing her dreams.
As word spread of Monufa's struggle, she has become a hero for many other girls. Authorities of her school have praised her for her courage. Teachers of other schools in the upazila often use Monufa as an example to motivate their students to continue to study.
Headmaster of the school, Akkas Ali says that all teachers and students are proud of Monufa. Her courage and success in overcoming the odds has resulted in an increase in number of girl students admitted in his school this year.
Chairman of Koimari union parishad Kohinuzzaman Liton says that they narrate Monufa's story to village women and girls, as part of a campaign against child marriage and drop out from school.
But self-effacing Monufa is embarrassed when anyone praises her for her extraordinary achievement. She says that it is nothing but a part of the regular struggle every girl in the villages faces.
The writer is the Nilphamari correspondent of The Daily Star.
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