Jatiya Sangsad Speaker Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury called for creating awareness at the grassroots level with the help of people’s representatives to prevent early marriage in the country.
“Prevention of early marriage is not possible through the legal framework only,” she said this on Wednesday while speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural session of a workshop in the parliament building.
Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad and Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) jointly organized the workshop ‘Capacity Building for Addressing Child Marriage and Birth & Birth Registration.’
The speaker urged the parliament members to come forward to create awareness to prevent early marriage.
The speaker, who is also chairperson of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), said Bangladesh has become a role model of development in the world because of human resource development, economic progress, poverty alleviation and decline in maternal and child mortality rates.
The rate of early marriage has also reduced remarkably in Bangladesh, she said, adding that it would decline further if the present efforts continue, she added.
The speaker called upon all to work together to ensure gender parity and human resource development in the country.
Though poverty is one of the major reasons of early marriage in Bangladesh, social discrimination, religion, social customs, lack of moral education, prejudice and insecurity of girls are also responsible for this, she added.
Presided over by parliament secretariat Senior Secretary M Ashraful Mukul, the function was also addressed by Prof Dr Habibe Millat, MP, and IPU Consultant Brigitte Filion.
