Child Marriage Law and Freedom of Choice
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- Published: Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:09
The government of Bangladesh is presently contemplating a move that would permit girls to marry at 16 with parental consent and/or approval from courts. If the law is passed, it would mark the first occasion that girls are legally permitted to marry below the age of 18 in the Indian subcontinent since the "Child Marriage Restraint Act" came into effect in 1929.
Despite significant progress in improving gender equality and declining poverty in recent years, Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child marriage among girls in the world: two-thirds of women marry before the age of 18. The current law forbidding the marriage of minors (below the age of 18 for girls and 21 for boys) is frequently ignored and rarely enforced.