How law denies children of child marriage essential services

A recent report left me deeply unsettled. Children born to parents who were victims of child marriage are now facing barriers to essential services such as birth registration and immunisation.

Among various initiatives to prevent child marriage, one policy stands out: aligning the Birth and Death Registration Information System (BDRIS) with the Child Marriage Restraint Act. 

The software was programmed to verify the parents' ages. As a result, if the mother is under 18 or the father under 21, the child's birth registration cannot be completed. Since April this year, the system has effectively blocked the registration of children born to underage parents. 

A temporary exception has been made until October to allow these children to receive typhoid vaccinations.

This rule, which denies one child's right in the name of protecting another, is deeply disturbing. 

It is unclear why or how the government reached such a decision, especially when UNFPA's State of World Population 2025 report notes that in Bangladesh, 71 out of every 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 are mothers. 

This means a significant number of children risk being left out of the birth registration system altogether.

Child protection begins with birth registration and access to life-saving vaccines. 

Yet, children are being excluded from these fundamental rights simply because their parents were victims of child marriage — a clear contradiction of the Birth and Death Registration Act, 2004 and the Birth and Death Registration Rules, 2018. 

According to the law, birth registration is both a legal obligation and a citizen's right.

News reports said, on 18 August, Khagrachhari's Deputy Commissioner ABM Iftekharul Islam Khandker, wrote to the Registrar General, highlighting this issue. 

Following his appeal, the system was relaxed to allow registration for cases where the mother is at least 16 years old, so that children could at least receive typhoid vaccines. 

Yet no other country in the world seems to have a system that links a child's right to birth registration to their parents' ages.

Perhaps the government's intent was noble – to raise awareness about the consequences of child marriage. But so far, no visible awareness campaign has accompanied this policy, and it remains questionable whether such an approach will have any positive impact at all.

During discussions on revising the Child Marriage Restraint Act, other measures were also proposed, such as excluding families who marry off underage girls from social safety net programs. 

But this raises serious concerns: families eligible for VGF or VGD programs are already among the most vulnerable. Denying them social protection could push them further into poverty and increase the risk of early marriage, not reduce it.

Despite numerous global and national efforts, child marriage rates have not fallen significantly. 

In fact, many countries saw an increase after the Covid-19 pandemic. In Bangladesh, multiple projects have been launched since 2000, and the 1929 law was updated in 2017. 

Yet, according to 2022 data, 63% of girls under 18 were married — a 10% rise from 2021. 

The rate of marriage among girls under 15 also increased from 5% to 8%.

The social, economic, and political causes of child marriage are well known. But denying children their basic rights in the name of prevention cannot be justified. 

Punishing one generation for the choices forced upon another is neither fair nor consistent with the principles of human rights and justice.

The writer, Farhana Afroz, is a Development Worker.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.