The incident of child marriage has been reduced substantially following popularisation of marriage registration in the remote char areas on the Brahmaputra basin in recent years.
Following reduction of child marriage among the char people and arranging marriage of their sons and daughters at right age with proper registration, the extent of maternal and neonatal deaths has come down to the minimum.
Besides, incidents of dowry and domestic violence against women have also reduced in char areas where life standard of the char people and family peace among them marked significant improvement during the past seven years.
In addition, the char people, who were married 10 to 40 years back, are now also registering their marriage though cent percent wedding was happening at premature age between 10 and 14 years for the girls without registration even a decade ago.
The success has been achieved following comprehensive motivational activities being conducted by the Chars Livelihood Programme (CLP) since 2004 in riverine char areas of 10 districts through GO-NGO collaboration.
According to official sources, the UKaid through the Department for International Development, Australian Government through Australian Agency for International Development have been funding implementation of the CLP activities.
The comprehensive CLP activities are being conducted to improve life standard through eradicating extreme poverty of the have-nots group char families involving them with income generation activities to change their socioeconomic conditions.
Head of Programme Coordination Monjusree Saha of RDRS Bangladesh, one of the implementing organisations of CLP, said char people lived in utter poverty for decades, but they are now achieving socioeconomic uplift to lead meaningful life.
“As a result of hectic motivational activities conducted under CLP, char people are now arranging new marriage with registration at right age and the older char couples also registering their marriage after many years of their wedding,” she said.
