"Marry Before Your House is Swept Away": Child Marriage in Bangladesh
Sifola, age 13, stands in the home she shares with her husband and in-laws. Her parents took her out of school and arranged her marriage because they were struggling with poverty and wanted to conserve their resources in order to pay for her brothers’ schooling. Her family bribed local officials to forge a birth certificate that showed her age as over 18 in order to marry her off. March 31, 2015.
Child marriage around the world is associated with many harmful consequences. Girls face health dangers associated with early pregnancy, lower educational achievement, a higher incidence of spousal violence, and an increased likelihood of poverty.
Bangladesh illustrates many of the problems countries with high child marriage rates face. It has the fourth-highest rate of child marriage in the world after Niger, the Central African Republic, and Chad. In the period 2005 to 2013, according to UNICEF, 29 percent of girls in Bangladesh married before the age of 15 and 65 percent married before the age of 18.
Globally, girls aged 10-14 are five times more likely to die during child birth than mothers aged 20-24; girls aged 15-19 are still twice as likely to die during delivery than women aged 20-24.