Make 18 unconditional minimum marriageable age for females

No condition to bring down the minimum marriageable age for females from 18 to 16 should be added to the proposed "Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014", activists from three networks of over 500 local and foreign NGOs and development organisations said yesterday.

They called for retaining the age at 18 as per the current Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929. 

The three forums -- Girls Not Brides, Child Rights Advocacy Coalition in Bangladesh, and Bangladesh Girl Power Alliance -- made the call from a news conference at Jatiya Press Club in the capital.

"...we came to know that in the government-proposed new draft of Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014, a new section is being added, which mentions that a 16-year-old can be married off with her parents' and court's consent based on justifiable reasons, and after completion of the marriage, the girl will not be considered a minor," said Shaikh M Jobayed Hossain, manager (advocacy and communications), Plan International Bangladesh.

However, Meher Afroze Chumki, state minister for women and children affairs, told The Daily Star by phone that nothing had been finalised yet.

"This is a very sensitive subject. We are still discussing it," she said, observing that despite the current minimum age being 18, many girls are getting married before 18 because of various social problems.

"Girls often get pregnant before marriage, and parents cannot accept it and face social problems," she said, adding that the government was thinking how to address these special cases.

"Besides, such provisions exist in many Western countries," she said. The minimum marriageable age is 16 in the UK and many European countries, she added.

Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers Association (BNWLA), said, "Child marriage is not a problem for the UK or other European country, so it does not matter what their laws say about the minimum age."

"In addition, out-of-marriage pregnancies mostly occur when girls are raped. Will we be doing justice by legalising marriage with the rapist?" she asked.

According to Unicef's 2013 data, 66.2 percent of Bangladeshi females aged 20-24 got married before 18. This is the highest rate of early marriage in Asia and fourth in the world.

"Girls between ages 11 and 18 are married off even when the current minimum marriage age is 18. If it is decreased to 16, people will marry off their daughters at 8," said cricket coach Mitu Roy, who prevented her own marriage five years ago when she was a student of class-VIII.