Child Marriage: a Global Issue

Many people in the Western world mistakenly believe child marriage is a thing of the past and has nothing to do with them. However, child marriage is still very real and a global issue, not only in the developing world but also in the UK.

Let me begin with a couple of statistics. Globally, about 1 in 3 women get married before their 18^th birthday (with the highest rates of child marriage occurring in South Asia).  But, even in the UK, there are 5000-8000 people at risk of being forced into marriage against their will each year.

Not only is forcing a child to get married not right, but there are health issues associated with it as well. The child is not ready for married life, both physically and emotionally, and there are major risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth, especially for a young teenager’s still developing body. This significantly increases the risk of death of both the mother and the baby during labour and could permanently damage the young mother’s body. But there are also emotional consequences for the child bride. The husband is usually much older, leading to likely oppression of the young bride. In addition, the child bride is likely to be immature and unable to play the role expected of her as a wife and mum. This will surely lead to a life of unhappiness and potentially even long-term depression.

Take Loki, who lives in a small village in Bangladesh, for example. She may be 18 (so legally no longer a child), but is still very childlike at heart. She is not ready to give up her childhood and become a wife, yet her parents recently brought a man over (who appeared to be in his early 30s) to view him as a potential husband for her. It was not a good match, but if he wants to marry her and her parents agree, then she will have little choice in the matter.

There are many others. One Bangladeshi woman I met got married at 14. While her husband seems lovely, she doesn’t, and has never loved him. Consequently the now older woman has never known a happy marriage. But, as expected of Bangladeshi women, she makes do and serves her family’s ever need.

In July, the ‘Girl Summit’ took place in London. During this event, four NGOs talked about child marriage and what is needed to help tackle the issue. These discussions included tactics that have been found successful in delaying marriage (such as reproductive health education programmes in schools) as well as some of their experiences campaigning against child marriage. Such campaigns can help raise awareness about child marriage and even have the potential to reach children at risk of being forced into early marriage by their families.

The Bangla Experience

Here is a very overdue post about what I did and experienced during my 3 months in Bangladesh:

We arrived in Dhaka for a week's training not really knowing what to expect except the heat and humidity that Bangladesh experiences during their summer (or 'hot season'). During that week before we moved to the communities in which we would be living and working, we met the Dhaka University students who would be working with us for the first month and received basic training with regards to the Bangla culture. As part of that training (and possibly the most usful bit), we received a short Bangla lesson (basic words/phrases that we might need during our time there). Just wish I had learned more of the language, as what I did learn proved very useful!

The Work
We moved to our villages about a week after our arrival to Bangladesh and met with our local youth clubs to discuss what projects they needed/wanted us to focus on and what they wanted us to achieve during our time there. I was based in Kirttankhali, a small village in the Bagerhat district of the southwest region. The focuses of our project were primary health care and WaSH (Water and Sanitation and Hygiene).

During our time working with our communities, we enabled latrine installations and repairs of a pond sand filter (to give the locals safe drinking water). We also cleared a pond area and cleaned another pond sand filter. We held toothbrushing and hand washing sessions with young children and small community gatherings where we talked about waste disposal and nutrition. Over the course of three days, we ran blood grouping sessions, during which approximately 300 villagers learned their blood type. Such knowledge is useful in cases of emergency when someone may need blood (particularly when women give birth, since they practice traditional midwifery). We also organised a child marriage and dowry rally and a large event (called a Community Action Day or CAD) on disability and sanitation. The disability and sanitation CAD consisted of a rally including a girl in a wheelchair from Kirttankhali, several guest speakers, a drama that our youth club wrote and performed, a handwashing session and a cultural evening of local music and dance.

Not long after our arrival in our villages, we discovered that female menstruation is a taboo subject so teenage girls don't understand it and often believe there is something wrong with them when they begin menstruating so are afraid and embarrassed. Consequently, we gave a talk at the local girls' school to girls aged approximately 14-16 to inform them and reassure them that what is happening to them is perfectly normal and a part of growing up. As part of the session, we gave the girls the opportunity to ask questions anonymously, which proved successful as they felt comfortable asking those questions.

As VSO requested, we helped start a school gardening project at the girls' school, providing the girls with seeds and digging a plot in which the seeds were planted. We also gave two required talks on volunteerism, though, at the moment, the only volunteering opportunities there are in the villages are through joining the youth club or participating in the school gardening project and, as the villages we were working with are subsistence farming communities, when the kids are not at school, they are busy helping their families on the farms (and may even miss school on days when there is a lot of work to do on the farms, such as during the rice harvest).

Blood Grouping Session

Disability Rally

The Life
While we were in our villages, we stayed with host families and learned that when women get married, they move in with their husband's family. Consequently, families consist of several generations living under one roof.

In our villages, the women tended to do the cooking and other household chores, while the men were out working in the fields or taking produce to the local market (Chitalmari). During the heat of the day, we found it was difficult to get transport (which was on 'vans' (normally electric or pedal bicycles with a wooden platform attached to the back)). This is because the villagers tended to take a nap or take shelter indoors as working when it is 40ºC with 98% humidity is very difficult.

The Banglas were very hospitable and were always saying hi to us (the only foreigners, or 'badeshi' around). We also gathered crowds of inquisitors wherever we went, which was sometimes entertaining and sometimes frustrating, but all part of the experience. There was a very laid back lifestyle and nothing ever started on time so we quickly learned not to expect events to start until about an hour after they were meant to and stopped worrying about punctuality ourselves.

In the Kirttankhali area, most of the villagers were Hindu. Consequently, there were many festivals while we were there, and Hindu festivals mean lots of drums, colourful dress and food (and Banglas love their rice). Not long after we arrived, there was Holi, the Hindu festival of colours, where people throw paint at each other. And because we were the only badeshi (non-locals), we were the targets of most of the paint and it really dyes your skin. The blue was more obvious than the red, so we ended up looking like smurfs for about a week after!

Left to Right: Elana, me, our host mum (whom we called 'Didi', which means sister) , Zoë

The Climate
We were in Bangladesh during what they call the 'hot season'. Consequently, throughout our time there, the temperatures rose from around 30ºC to, by the end of the three months, 40-43ºC with around 98% humidity. We were witness to a few spectacular thunderstorms where you could see many lightening bolts and, because the soil is clay and most of the time it was so hot and dry, when it did rain, the soils would flood quite quickly and become sticky mud almost immediately, which we experienced more towards the end of our time there, as monsoon season was about to start. About three weeks after we returned to the UK, one of the Kirttankhali youth club members told me there had been a cyclone that had destroyed the wooden shack that the youth club had been meeting in. He also sent me a photo of it (below).

Destroyed Youth Club building, photo courtesy of Akash Mondal

Final Countdown

It's been a while but that's because there hasn't really been much to say. However, since I'm now in my final week of preparation before flying to Bangladesh, I feel as though another post is appropriate so here are a couple of things that have been on my mind recently.

With much pestering on Facebook and Twitter (yes, I finally gave in to the world of Twitter for the sake of this trip), as well doing outrageous things (such as walking across the Tay Bridge in a duck onesie) and not so crazy things (bag packing), I managed to reach a whopping £1001.60 in fundraising for VSO (my target was £800). I would like to use this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me get there.

Now, I started shopping for this trip quite early on and, over the past few months, have been frustrated, on occasion, to discover that everything I've been needing has been out of season (well, almost everything). In addition, it seems as though whenever I think I've finally managed to get my hands on everything we need, new information arises about other recommended things for the trip. Well, thankfully, I think I finally do have everything I need, though how it will all fit in my bag is a different matter altogether. But, I'm sure it will all fit, because it just has to. Anyways, now the excitement is starting to set in, though I'm equally a bit nervous. We fly out from London Thursday night so next post will be from Bangladesh with real stories/information about what I'm doing!

Delay

I know this is a bit of a short post, but there's not much to say. I've promised updates so...

Last night, we were informed that because of the upcoming election in early January, and the security implications surrounding this election, our programme start date has been delayed until the end of February. Though I understand why this is happening, I am a bit disappointed and frustrated by the delay because I had planned everything around leaving in January. However, since we're now not leaving the UK until the end of February, we won't be back until the end of May, which complicates things a bit more. I guess, on the plus side, I now have more time to organise everything before going.

40 days and counting

I've got to admit. When I first applied to go overseas with VSO ICS, I never expected it to become a reality and certainly never expected it to be Bangladesh. However, with the fundraising target of £800 hit and only one more rabies vaccine to go, the reality that, in just over a month I will by flying to Bangladesh where I will be spending the next three months is starting to hit. Time is flying by and there is still so much that needs to get done before leaving the UK.

The training weekend in Birmingham was a couple of weeks ago and, though training was intense, I greatly enjoyed meeting the UK half of the team and I left feeling excited yet still a bit nervous about meeting our Bangladeshi counterparts when we arrive. I am certain that, though challenging, my time in Bangladesh will be incredibly rewarding.

Bangladesh Flag