Staff Reporter, Rangpur :
In the presence of thousands of people, Fulbari has been primarily declared as the 3rd Upazila of Kurigram District as child marriage free on Tuesday. The declaration event held at the premises of Fulbari Degree College where the Member of Parliament of Kurigram-2, Ponir Uddin Ahmed, gave this declaration as the Chief Guest.
The Upazila Administration of Fulbari organized this event jointly with Plan International Bangladesh as part of the ongoing project Building Better Future for Girls (BBFG), funded by Embassy of Sweden and implemented by RDRS Bangladesh.
Deputy Commissioner of Kurigram district Muhammad Rezaul Karim chaired the declaration ceremony.
Chairman of Upazila Parishad Golam Rabbani Sarker was present in the event as a special guest. Project Manager of BBFG project, Plan International Bangladesh, Nazrul Islam Chowdhury and Programme Manager of RDRS Tapon Kumar Karmakar were also present at the event.
At the beginning of the event UNO Sumon Das of Fulbari Upazila shared information on current context on child marriage of Fulbari and major achievements of BBFG project. Later, a discussion session was held where the discussants shared the objective of the declaration, the present situation of the Upazila and future action plan. The event aimed to create mass awareness on preventing child marria ge and advocate for the activation of different committees in Upazila, Union, and Community level to prevent child marriage, reduce the rate of child marriage and finally declare the Upazila as child marriage free. In the discussion session, it was shared that with the leadership of the district administration of Kurigram a committee has been formed to review the progress of the Fulbari upazila following the guideline of Governance Innovation Unit (GIU) of Bangladesh Government. While sharing the recent child marriage situation in the upazila following information was presented by the discussants in the session-
Some 285 families those are at the risk of child marriage provided support in coordination with government and non-government organization so that these families will not arrange marriage for their girls before 18 and can support to continue girls education. Bi-cycle race, debate competition, session conduct by champion father were also done before this declaration. The rate of giving birth is low under 20 years of mother.
All the stakeholders like government-non government organizations, local government, police and administration have been actively working towards preventing child marriage.
“We all are committed to stop child marriage in Kurigram. Kazi, Imam, school-college teachers, community representatives all are requested to work together from their respective roles. “If we work together, we can definitely stop child marriage,” said chief guest.
The DC said, “We can do everything. In 2017, the rate of child marriage in Fulbari Upazila was 65%; In 2021, it has come down to 4%. This is an achievement.
The most attractive part of the event was the ‘Oath’ taken by participants showing ‘Red Card’ to child marriage along with declaring Fulbari Upazila as child marriage free.
