Saturday | 5 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
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Saturday | 5 October 2024 | Epaper

‘Girls Get Equal’ helps decrease early marriage in Barguna

Published : Saturday, 31 December, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 609
Our Correspondent
A session on 'making girls aware about the demerits of early marriage' going on in Barguna. photo: observer

A session on 'making girls aware about the demerits of early marriage' going on in Barguna. photo: observer

BARGUNA, Dec 30: Early marriage was at its peak during Covid-19 pandemic as all the educational institutes were closed in the district for nearly one and a half years.
According to sources at District Women Affairs Department, since March in 2020, more than 3,000 girl students of nine districts were married off at the early age. The number of child marriages is 197, and a total of 217 early marriages were stopped in the district.
International Development Organizations- Plan International Bangladesh, South Asia Partnership (SAP)-Bangladesh and Resource Development Foundation (RDF), jointly implemented various projects to prevent the early marriage. That is why the child marriage has finally started to decrease.  
According to district administration sources, besides, Women Affairs Department, different non-government development organizations undertook various measures to prevent early marriage.
Plan International Bangladesh, SAP Bangladesh and RDF launched a five-year-long project 'Girls Get Equal' (GGE) that ts working in Sadar and Taltali upazilas.    
Of these, SAP Bangladesh implemented various projects at the field level in Barguna Sadar while RDF works in Taltali Upazila.
GGE Project Manager Saleha Akter said, "Early marriage has increased a lot due to coronavirus pandemic. To prevent this, we made various campaigns. These campaigns included working on dropped-out students at secondary school and madrasa levels, creating awareness among the students about sex, pregnancy and health, providing financial assistance to victimised girls and their poor parents, creating social awareness among them about the negative impact of child marriage, and increasing effectiveness of Child Protection and Early Marriage Preventing Committee."
 Besides, she further said, the project provided stipend, school dresses and various educational materials to 6,210 poor students in 108 secondary schools; a total of 1,650 dropped-out students were also facilitated with alternative education systems; of them, 138 students have already managed to return schools after completing the alternative education successfully; financial assistance was given to 2,200 families, who are facing the early marriage threat, and various training programmes were arranged for them."
The project also undertook various programmes including installing new tube-wells and repairing damaged tube wells at different schools, construction of tube-well platform, renovation of link roads to schools and the school buildings, establishing new toilet and common rooms for the female students, and providing sanitary napkin, first aid box, counselling support, height and weight measurement machine, and water filters at different schools in the district.
Ayesha Akter of Boro Baliatali area under M Balitali Union in Sadar Upazila, a beneficiary of the project, said, "After the divorce of my parents, I started living with my paternal grandmother. Due to financial crisis, my education was about to stop. But with the help of GGE project, I managed to keep myself safe from early marriage. Now, I want to study and get independent."
Project Manager of SAP Bangladesh Md Khorshed Alam said, "We have established 64 youth clubs in 16 unions under Sadar and Taltali upazilas, with a view to preventing early marriage. We organize different sessions, discussion meetings and training programmes through these clubs. We are also working on 48 child protection committees at yje society level to increase their effectiveness in association with District Child Welfare Board. Of these committees, 19 are about child marriage prevention at union, upazila and district levels."
Deputy Commissioner (DC) Md Habibur Rahman said, the district administration is helping the GGE to prevent the child marriage.
Due to this project, early marriage in the district has already started to decrease, the DC maintained.









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Editor : Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury
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