Staff Reporter :
At least 59 per cent child marriages take place before passing their adolescence in Bangladesh and thereby breeds multifarious health burden like maternal and child mortality.
As a result, 43 per cent of them face immature death due to complicated pregnancy.
Director General of Family Planning Kazi Mustafa Sarwar said this while addressing a meeting at Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society of Bangladesh auditorium in the capital’s Mirpur on Thursday.
Dhaka Family Planning Division organised the programme.
Family Planning Division Director for Dhaka, Braza Gopal Bhowmick, presided over the meeting, while Maternal and Child Health Programme Manager Joynal Haque, among others, spoke there.
Currently, Bangladesh has 3.6 crore adolescents, about one-fifth of the total population.
Kazi Mustafa Sarwar said, at least 31 per cent of adolescents become pregnant before reaching 19.
“We have many challenges of which the child marriage is a big concern,” he said. Kazi Mustafa said that the huge child marriage was taking a toll on national life. The maternal mortality and the child mortality rate could not be lowered owing to child marriage.
According to him, poverty and lack of social security of female children were the two major reasons for the high rate of child marriage in Bangladesh.
“We are successful in controlling population growth, but the child marriage will jeopardize all of our achievements,” he said.
The DGFP data shows that the rate of unmet need in the family planning services is higher among the adolescent couple group -17 per cent, compared with the national rate of 12 per cent.
The nutritional status of adolescents is poor as 13.2 per cent female adolescents are suffering from stunting and 31 per cent are suffering from malnutrition and 30 per cent are suffering from anemia.
DGFP Director for Maternal and Child Health, Mohammad Sharif, said the adolescent health was crucial as the health of this stage has great impact on the later life of individuals, especially on the mothers and children.
He said the adolescents of today would make Bangladesh a developed country and the health and family welfare workers have to work for protecting the future of Bangladesh.
