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Child Marriage is a Sourceof Modern Days Slavery
Aruna Bala writes for DOT :
From the estimated record of the International Labour Organization (ILO) represents that 40.3 million people are enslaved around the world and of those, 15.4 million are in conditions of forced marriage.Forced marriage takes place when any of the parties regardless of their age has been enforced to marriage without their consent. This kind of marriages also affects both sexes. The International Labour Law (ILO) reports that 84% of the victims are girls and women.
There are three types of forced marriage, likely: (1) Forced marriage of adults, (2) Early or child marriage, (3) Trafficking for marriage.Forced marriage of child has negative education, economic and health impacts in addition to stripping a child of their childhood and control over their future. When girls are insisted to get married, they get bound often to leave school and lead a lifeby minimizing their economic opportunities. They are linked between forced marriage and child marriage along with modern slavery.
According to UNICEF, 250 million women alive today were married before their 15th birthday. The highest rates of child marriages are concentrated in Sub-Sahara Africa, while, due to population size. The highest absolute number of child marriage taken place in South Asia where 46% of girls married before the puberty (18 years old) and one in five marry before the age of 15.
Let’s look at the law; child slavery is defined in the 1956 Supplementary Convention on Slavery as, “any institution or practice whereby a child or a young person under the age of 18 years is delivered to another person with a view to the exploitation of the child or young person or of his labour.” For example: I am 13 years old and I am fourth grade student. I like going to school. One day my mother informed me that I should marry a cousin of mine. I cried a lot because I didn’t want to leave school but my parents threatened to beat me if I refuse-collected from Thompson Reuters Foundation News.That’s how a young girls or child gets slaved by insisting them into marriage without their consent and wish.
59% of girls in Bangladesh are married before their 18th birthday and 22% are married before the age of 15 years old. According to UNICEF, Bangladesh has the 4th highest prevalence rate of child marriage in the world and the second highest number of absolute Child Bribes- 4,451,000.The child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that girls are somehow inferior to boys. In Bangladesh, child marriage is also driven by poverty, leave of education, family honour, humanitarian context and displacement.
But Bangladesh has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals and Bangladesh also ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1999 which says “a minimum age of marriage of 18”, and agreed to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1984, which obligates states to ensure “Free and full consent to marriage”.
In February, 2017, the parliament of Bangladesh has adopted the Child Marriage Restraint Act despite widespread concerns over a special provision allowing child marriage in special cases. The Act doesn’t define what ingredients needed for a special case. The majority of the population in Bangladesh does not believe marrying children is a form of sexual violence and a form of slavery. But there are some following grounds remain which clearly states that child marriage is a form of slavery, such as; (1) child has not genuinely given free and full consent to the marriages, (2)a child is being subjected to ownership, (3) a child has being threatened or abused to get marry, (4) a child has being forced in non-consensual sexual relations and the last but not the least, which has become very usual to our society is (5) If the child cannot realistically leave or end the marriage, leading a lifetime slavery. So we can say that child marriage is a form of modern slavery where a young girls or child remains under the suppressionof disgrace.
Currently, the government of Bangladesh has tried to change the provisions of child marriage but it’s not only government’s duty rather we people of Bangladesh should stand against these applications of forced marriage towards our young generation. It is not possible to prevent the child marriage by enacting the laws only, until and unless we act accordingly to stop it. Also, every school and colleges of all over the Bangladesh should arrange the training to deliver some essential information relate to the force child marriages as well as how it affects our society along with appropriate remedies. Therefore, the government shall provide ‘Helpline ‘for the children or young girls while they are forced to marriage before the age of 18 years old and there also should be an awareness campaign.
The writes is a Graduate and Postgraduate in Law from Eastern University, author and an independent researcher.