Dr. Abu S. Shonchoy

Dr. Zaki Wahhaj

Project Objectives:

• Increase 50% birth registration of unmarried adolescent girls in treatment communities;

• Increase 75% awareness of a national helpline for reporting child marriage cases among guardians in treatment communities;

• A lower child marriage rate (specifically marriage below the age of 18) in the treatment communities compared to the control communities at endline by 30%.

Project Interventions:

1. Covering the cost of birth registration at 60 communities households with unmarried adolescent girls from UP/local government centers;

2.  Providing information on the Bangladesh government’s national

Dr. Abu S Shonchoy

Zaki Wahhaj

During the next 10 years, 14 million girls in different parts of the world are expected to experience child marriage – i.e. marriage before the age of 18 – each year. In developing countries, one in three women presently aged 20-24 were married or in a union before age 18 (UNFPA 2012).

In most countries, there are legal bans on marriage below a certain age. However, in poor countries, the laws are often ignored and rarely enforced. The enforcement problem is often exacerbated by the absence of a universal birth registration system which makes it difficult to verify the age