Campaign to prevent child marriage, violence against women continues in Gaibandha.

Campaign to prevent child marriage, violence  against women and children has been continuing in Sadar and Fulchhari upazila of the district since December 2022 creating positive impacts among the community people from all walks of life.

Area program office of World Vision Bangladesh, is implementing the campaign activity among the multi stakeholders from grass root level to top one of the upazilas under a project entitled ‘Strengthening Social and Behavior Change’ with the financial support of European Union and UNICEF.

The objective of the project is to prevent child marriage, violence against the women and the children to have a better society amid the change of behavior. In addition, to promote the welfare of the children and adolescents is another objective of the project, said Uttam B. Das, area program manager of the organization here recently to BSS.

Firoz Kabir, a member of a youth club of Galakatti area said he is creating aware the people about the bad impacts of early marriage and female and children oppression voluntarily. Now and then, they sit together and adopted locally contextualized plans and strategies how to gear up their voluntary activity in a bid to reduce child marriage in their communities, he also said.

Mostafizur Rahman, head teacher of Galakatti High School said the project team briefed them about the objective of the project. Accordingly, we highlighted the negative impacts of child marriage to the students and their guardians.
Very often, the school arranges rally for the mothers and fathers of the students. In the rally, the guardians are briefed about the bad impacts of child marriage so that the guardians do not marry off their children in school life.

Papia Sultana, upazila women affairs officer, said it is not possible for a single organization to prevent child marriage unless other organizations stand beside them.

As World Vision Bangladesh has started working relentlessly aim to reduce child marriage in the upazila, in course of time, other relevant organizations would join hands with such concerted efforts to attain the cherished goal, she expected.

When contacted to deputy director (DD) of department of women affairs Nargis Jahan said she is aware of the activities of the project in two upazilas of the district.

The concerned upazila women affairs offices would play active role to reduce child marriage taking the efforts and cooperation of the organization in the days to come, she mentioned.

In reply to a query, DD said the project has already gained much popularity to the people of the upazilas for creating social awareness in a bid to prevent child marriage.

AH Toufique Ahmed, Rangpur and Rajshahi divisional chief of UNICEF said as per the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017, an emphasis has been given to form Child Marriage Prevention Committee at district, upazila and union level and the role and responsibilities of the committee have been clearly explained.

They are enthusiastically working with partners to strengthen the local committees and local administration to change harmful norms in child marriage prevention drive’, he added. (BSS)