In the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) State of the World’s Children 2009 report, findings show that early marriage is pervasive in Bangladesh, with 64 percent of girls married before age 18, as IRIN News reports. Early pregnancy often results from early marriage –one-third of girls aged 15 to 19 in Bangladesh are currently either mothers or pregnant. These teenage mothers are reportedly twice as likely to die from pregnancy or child-birth complications. Further, research shows that “the risk of maternal mortality could be five times higher for mothers aged 10 to 14 than for those aged 20 to 24, as IRIN explains.

Though the legal marriage age in Bangladesh is 21 for boys, 18 for girls, findings from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey indicate that the median age for marriage of girls is 16.4 years. Concerns that dowry prices will increase as age increases often provoke parents to encourage early marriage, for it is seen as a way to reduce the financial burden that daughters are perceived to pose.

NGOs are working to address early marriage and its consequences, one of which was recently described at a conference in Dhaka: “The major casualty is the education of teenage girls.” An anti-child marriage activist, Rahela Rahmatullah, told IRIN of the unhealthy cycle that early marriage perpetuates: “The young brides, lacking education, become the malnourished mothers of undernourished children and little else.”

Rahmatullah explains that in her work, she and others travel to the districts of Bangladesh with adolescent wives who describe the problems they have faced and then advise young girls not to accept a proposal until at least age 20. Barriers and social conventions hinder the work of Rahmatullah, who tells IRIN that seeking a girl’s consent on marriage is still considered taboo, and therefore young girls have little recourse in the face of early marriage.

BANGLADESH: Too young to marry-IRIN News