Title of the project
Innovative: Digitization of marriage registration for stopping child marriage.
Funding Agency:
Access to information (a2i),
Prime Minister office in Bangladesh.
Allocated budget
5,054,597 BDT
Duration:
21 May 2017 to 31 December 2017 (15 Months )
Locations:
14 Union under Dumuria Upazila of Khulna District.
Executive Summary
Every year approximately 15 million girls are married as children across countries, cultures, religions and ethnicities. Child marriage is rooted in gender inequality and in the low value accorded to girls and it’s exacerbated by poverty, insecurity and conflict. It denies girls their rights, choice and participation, undermines numerous development priorities, hindering progress towards a more equal, healthy and prosperous world. It is a global menace that shows no sign of slowing down. Every day, an estimated 41,000 girls are married off before they turn 18. Child marriage can victimize both girls and boys but it’s devastating effects are harder on girls.
According to the Violence against Women Survey conducted in 2015 by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 72.6% of married women in Bangladesh experienced some form of violence by their husbands and most of them were got early marriage. This data shows that women and girls are already at risk of GBV even in a normal setting. According to report of UNICEF, Bangladesh is in third position in south Asia where 66.69% early marriage happening. Khulna Division is thehighest risk zone of child marriage in Bangladesh. In 2016, BBSI with UNICEF- Among the 200,000 households interviewed, 35% of women aged between 20 and 24 years reported getting married before 18. According to the “Economic Impacts of Child Marriage: Global Synthesis Report”, more than one in three girls are married off before the age of 18. World Bank analysis suggests that the economic cost of child marriage is high. Ending child marriage and early child-bearing could reduce fertility and lower population growth by about one tenth in high prevalence countries.
Most of the dropout cases ends into a child marriage are especially in case of girls. Here are most cases are Poverty and sexual harassment, lack of Lack of age verification mechanisms, Existing birth registration is quite, Harmful Cultural Norms in indigenous and dalit communities: including stalking by boys and men leads families to stop girls from school going and marrying them off before any unpleasant incident takes place.
Child marriage is our flagship program and we are committed to achieving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s target of ending marriage of girls under 15 by 2021 and under 18 by 2041 (announced at the 2014 UK Girls Summit). In our quest to achieve these goals, to accelerate the end of child marriage, we have partnered with Govt.
Parittran as the partner of its Challenge Fund Of Access to information (a2i) is the govt. program under Prime Minister office in Bangladesh and Plan International Bangladesh who contributing a lots to eradicate all sorts of stop child marriage through using ICT implementing pilot project to digitization of marriage registration systems at local level and more functioning the local stakeholders for enhancing and engaging social protection norms, grievance redress mechanism related to Gender Based violence. Children database for reduce School dropout, training on input data on online database system, training for marriage register for age verification aged (10-18 Years Child) & training on system of digital marriage registration and age verification by SMS with District & Sub-District Level Government officer at Dumuria in Khulna. Parittran and a2i has a plan to scale up this most innovative project at country wide.
Vision
To leverage technology to streamline and digitize the marriage registration process, making it more efficient and transparent to help prevent child marriages.
Mission
To design an innovative child marriage prevention approach that will ensure the most vulnerable girls in rural and urban communities overcome economic, social and protection barriers to continue and finish their schooling and marry after they reach 18.
Target group(s):
Total number of final beneficiaries 72000 (seventy-Two thousand) families of the proposed action area.
Estimated results
- Digitization of marriage registration should contribute to reduction of child marriage through age verification and awareness rising.
Improved social protection to reduce dropout rates from higher education. - Awareness will be created to remove social and cultural challenges/barriers to prevent child marriage and sexual harassment.
- It will bring more transparency to the marriage registration process, making it easier to track and monitor marriages in real time.
Main activities
- Develop 1 Nos. database with 72000 house hold survey and link with server at Dumuria Upazila Under Khulna District.
- Customize SMS & USSD Solution in English & Bangla
- Design Dynamic Web Application, Online Marriage Registration
- Android App Development.
- Formation of Union & Upazila level UVAWC
- Activating the UVAWC and regularize of child marriage status register at
- 15 Nos. Advocacy workshop for reformation of UVAWC Committee (consist with 27 members in each committee) at Union & Upazila level
- 42 Nos. Quarterly coordination meeting with UVAWC
- Advocacy meeting on formation Sexual harassment prevention committee at Secondary School level according to High court direction (65 secondary school & 30 Madrasa representatives will participate). The committee will form with 7 members.
- 1 Nos. Religious leader Gathering at Upazila Level for MOU to protect early Marriage-(200)
- Training for Marriage registrar and assistants on effective use of project ICT solutions to marriage registration- 1 Nos.
- Up secretary & UISC Training for skill of keeping Early Marriage protection data, Birth registration on online – 1 Nos.
- Training for convener of Sexual harassment prevention committee – (3batch)
- Service Mapping workshop with different service delivery Institutions at Upazila Level (GO &NGO)- 1 Nos
- 110 Nos. festoon (pana) for Secondary School awareness building to protect Sexual Harassment
- 15 Nos. 2 days Marriage Registration Camp at Upazila and Union level
- 126 Nos. Courtyard meeting to building community awareness (1 nos. in a month in each ward of 14 union)
- 95 Nos. Gender Game for secondary School level to protect gender base violence
- 14 Nos. Settings Wallboard to demonstration the signed MoU at Union Parishad for build social awareness.
- Identification of extreme poor families, children’s and adolescents to integrate with social safety net program.
- Develop service referral systems.
- Linkage building with alternative income options (both GO and NGO) of Dalit and excluded unemployed youth.
- Motivate to drop out youth for encourage them in vocational skill training and become small entrepreneurs
- Include the database of Vulnerable, Dalit, Ethnic and Dalit youth in SEIP project for tag them with different sponsorship
Approval:
Final report (View)
Agreement (View) – PDF
