WUNRN
How Birth Certificates Help Fight Child Marriage
Rubi, 19, managed to avoid early marriage because she could
prove how old she was. Photo by: Jessica Lomelin / Plan International
By Jessica
Lomelin - 24 November 2014
Four years ago, Rubi took the
exam for her Secondary School Certificate in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. She rushed
home to share her results with her family, but when she arrived, she was told
that her parents were going to marry her off.
She was then 15 years old.
“I was so sad because all I
wanted to do was share the good news of my exam results, but that changed once
I realized they had arranged my marriage,” said Rubi, a vibrant, ambitious girl
and the oldest sibling in a family of 10 who was unable to convince her family
that she was too young to get married.
Desperate and not knowing where
to turn, Rubi told her school friends and a teacher, who put them in touch with
Plan
International’s partner organization.
As an ambassador of Plan’s global
“Because I am a
Girl” campaign, the now 19-year-old has long been involved with the
NGO, raising awareness of the importance of birth registration and other key
issues, so she knew the legal age for marriage in Bangladesh was 18.
Together, they visited the Union
Council Office to meet with the chairman — who Rubi knew from her involvement
with the local child forum group — to explain her situation.
ADVOCATING FOR HER RIGHTS
“I told him that I have the right
to an education until age 18 and that my parents must honour that,” Rubi said.
“The chairman went to my home and tried to speak to my parents, but initially
they weren’t convinced.”
Together, the girl and her
parents went to chairman’s office. At first, her parents tried to discreetly
change the age on the birth certificate, but the local official put a stop to
it. After several visits and discussions, the chairman spoke to Rubi’s parents
about the legal implications of child marriage and convinced them to abandon
the idea.
Rubi’s parents, they tried to
arrange their daughter’s marriage as they couldn’t afford Rubi’s education and
general upbringing, but now they admit they were wrong.
“Now, I realize it was good for
Rubi that her marriage didn’t take place when she was a child,” explained her
father.
THE VALUE OF THE BIRTH
CERTIFICATE
Bangladeshi law requires parents
to register births within 45 days.
Although there is a $65 penalty
missing the deadline, until recently many parents ignored the law as well as
the importance of birth registration and would put off registering their
child’s birth until it was absolutely necessary.
For Rubi, that time came when she
was 6 years old and denied admission to primary school because she was unable
to provide a birth certificate.
Her parents took her to the local
government office and finally able to secure the card so she could attend.
CHILD MARRIAGE CONTEXT
Bangladesh has the second-highest
rate of child marriage in the world, second only to Niger. According to a
2013 report commissioned
by Plan, 64 of all Bangladeshi women aged 20–24 were married before the age of
18.
The research, conducted as part
of the Because I am a Girl campaign, showed that marriage is widely considered
a family matter in the country, where it’s common for the father to decide for
his daughter. Most families believe that by arranging a marriage with a
suitable groom, they are providing girls with social and economic security.
Globally, 1 in 5 girls around the
world is denied an education by the daily realities of poverty, violence and
discrimination. Every day, girls are taken out of school, married far too young
and subjected to violence in school. Not only is this unjust — it’s also a huge
waste of potential with serious global consequences.
Birth registration has the potential
to play a crucial role in reducing child marriage in, but this depends on
enforcing existing laws and comprehensive systems in place to register major
life events, including deaths, marriages, adoptions and births.
Child marriage, birth
registration and the wider spectrum of civil registration and vital statistics
— or CRVS — are high on the agenda of many Asian governments as they look
beyond the Millennium Development Goals and toward the post-2015 agenda.
With 135 million children
effectively invisible because they have not been registered, the region’s
governments will gather together this week in Bangkok for the Ministerial
Meeting on CRVS in Asia-Pacific to agree on a framework to
ensure all countries have effective CRVS systems in place along with strong
legal systems to support their implementation.
A FAMILY ADVOCATING FOR BIRTH
REGISTRATION
As for Rubi, she is now 19 and continues to be active with Plan,
serving as a community worker and conducting family surveys on a variety of
issues.
She is also spreading her message
far and wide. In 2011, she traveled to Australia to share her personal story
and raise awareness over the plight of child marriage and the importance of
birth registration, as well as the challenges of growing up in rural
Bangladesh.
The future is now looking much
brighter for Rubi, who is currently studying Islamic history.
“After getting my birth
certificate, I have been able to move ahead. I want to say to everybody: please
get your births registered — not only for school or to get a job, this
certificate proves your identity,” said Rubi, who aspires to become a teacher.
“From childhood, I always wished to work for my society. In the future, when I
am an adult I plan to support my community.”