The Vicious Cycle Need to Break_What Education can Do.pdf

7/28/2019 The Vicious Cycle Need to Break_What Education can Do.pdf

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The Vicious CycleNeed to Break: WhatEducation can Do?

Ridwanul Mosrur


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Abstract

Recent incident of Rana Plaza collapse at Savar, Bangladesh brought an unbearable

pain to the humanitarian community as more than 1200 garment factory worker died

there under rubble. This occurrence not only present the risky poor working environ-

ment of the garment industry but also reveal many other truth. One of the fact that ex-

posed there is the overwhelming practice of early marriage or child marriage which

government claimed as not practiced anymore in Bangladesh. The garment factory

workers are mainly woman who pass their childhood by working as domestic worker;

then they are forced to be married and go to work in the garment factories where they

forced to work under very risky situation with the least minimum wage. This document

bring try to bring some insights in this regards by establishing the found fact with ana-

lyzed data from some secondary sources, as well as, try to find out some solution from

the point of education.


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Child marriage is one of the major reasons behind population growth in Bangladesh. By law, the minimum age

for the women to marry is 18. Marriage below this age is considered as child marriage which is legally punish-

able in Bangladesh. Though there is strict law to prevent child marriage in the country but still more than 50

percent of the women are married below 16 years. If we observe the age of the causalities and the age of their

children of the recent unexpected incident of Rana Plaza collapse at Savar, we will find that the law for pre-

venting child marriage is not implementing well.

Taslima of Dormutia village, who died in building collapse, was 25 years old. Taslima has two children. The

son, Sobuj is 14 years old and the daughter, Rupali is 7 years old. Another female worker of Rana Plaza Shilpi

Begum, who was rescued after 8 hours of building collapse and later died in Dhaka Medical College Hospital,

was 22 year old. From newspaper we could know that, she has a daughter named Barsha who is 4 years old.

On 8th May 2013, a news was published in Manobjomin where it was said that, after 12 days of the building

collapse the dead body of Rahima Begum was found who was from Machuyapara village of Pirgacha Upzilla.

Rahima was 18 years old. In the news it said that, 18 years old Rahima was married 3 years ago with

naighbour Aminul Islam Rana. That means, when Rahima was married, she was 15 years old. Mr. Ershad, the

chairman of the Jatiyo Party has taken the responsibility of 9 injured persons to take care for life-time among

whom there are Anna and Sonia of 16 years. As mentioned in multiple mass-media during building collapse at

Savar, the range of the age of the female garments worker is 21-30. There are many who are below 18 years.

About all of them, as found, have one or more children who are 1 to 10 years old.

From the cases that mentioned above, it is proved that child marriage exists in the country and that is still ex-

panding desperately. In the low-income families, parents and relatives start thinking of getting their female

children married from the time of birth. In those families the more are the number of girls, the more anxious

their parents are. As soon as the parents could get their daughter married, it seems the poor parents feel re-

lieved after releasing the load. But, not only the poor parents but also the teenager girl, who goes to the ex-

treme poor husband from the extreme poor parents, understand clearly that marriage is not the ultimate solu-tion. Thus the teenager girl with fragile-health, who has tasted the taste of motherhood within the shortest time


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of marriage, jumps to the struggle for livelihood. Its not true that the poor parents are not informed about the

evil consequences of the early marriage. Less or more, all parents know what future is waiting for the girl if

she is been married at that early age. But what else is there to do?

Most of the garments workers spend their childhood by working in someones house. From the age of 5 years,

the girls from the poor family go to the towns to work as domestic laborer. The tiny girl who is at the age of

playing with dolls, are put at work by the parents in the house of some urban lady, may be to look after the

newborn child of the lady for a little lump-sum amount of money. Though they work from dawn to evening

through the whole day but still they is not allowed to sleep before mid-night. Within this if they ever look at

the TV or through the windows of the closed house, they are beaten up along with being scolded. In this way

these tiny girls grew up from child to teenager through working at domestic chores.

Though it is claimed that the women of the country are advancing so far day by day, but for some unknown

reason, for the domestic child laborer issue we seems to stay at former centuries. As soon as the female domes-

tic child laborer turns into 12-13 years old, her master lady informed her (the domestic working girl) parents

that she is at the age of getting married. Sometimes the poor parents, after selecting bride from the village,

come to take their daughter to take to the home for getting her married.

The story after this is known to all. Some of them by being divorced, some of them by being tortured by their

drug-addict husband and some of them being enforced by extreme poverty set their journey to the cities. If the

luck favors, they could manage a job in the garment factories. But, within this time around every one of them

has more than a child. By being mother at the early age, the misfortune mother has already endangered her life,

as well as the future of her child.

In this way early marriage is blocking the way to control population growth. The statistics said that if only

child/early marriage is being stopped then 1 million of birth could be blocked, along with this, the rate mater-

nity death could be reduced. In the villages, if the girls were not to be married and if they could get the chance

to be skilled workers, many of our unexpected social problems could be avoided. But how - heres the strike


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blow. The government and many non-government organizations are working for last two decades to ensure

education and safe childhood to every child in Bangladesh. But still why we are failing to achieve the desired

target?

We cant bet this challenge because we are just caring the tree by forgetting the roots. The root of the social

problems are enlies in the belief and practiced philosophy of the people. If we really want to solve the problem

here, we need to take care of the seniors in the societies by involving them in continuing education. Continuing

education is only adult literacy education which is the practiced interpretation here in Bangladesh, but the

education for all to stay updated with the changing. The donors, the government, the non-government organi-

zations, the civil society have to understand the root of these problems and have to take proper initiatives from

all aspect. Awareness developing campaign is not enough as because people forget the message soon. We need

to make every people connected and active to socio-political and socio-cultural practices and discussions, if we

want to walk for a politically stable, economically dynamic and culturally enriched Bangladesh.

The Vicious Cycle Need to Break_What Education can Do.pdf

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