Stopping child marriage through poetry in Bangladesh
Girls from Bangladesh are convincing their parents to stop arranging child marriages for them through poetry.
“Recently, one girl stopped me on my way to school and told me that her parents have stopped arranging her marriage because they read the poem.”
Mr. Adbus
The collection of poetry has become an effective tool for girls to raise awreness of the effects of child marriage on girls. This book was written by Mr. Adbus, a Bengali teacher, a social worker and author of many books. He had been planning to write a book about stopping child marriage for a long time, and he was finally able to do so after participating in the trainings and psychological support group setup by Plan International’s Gender Responsive School and Community Initiative (GRSCSI) project.
Ms. Abdus guided the GRSCSI project to form 6 student task forces for the well-being of the students. The psychosocial support group is one of them. Each group consists of 4 students and 1 teacher. Mr. Abdus took on the role of guiding students and building their capacity for psychosocial support.
Child marriages increase during disasters
During many group discussions, he observed despair among girls as they knew they would have marriages arranged for them. Throughout his career, he had observed many girls drop out of school early due to child marriages. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend got worse. After reopening the school, he wrote poems on stopping child marriage and published them in his book.
The students had not only read these poems, but they also shared them with their communities. Through the students’ efforts, this poetry book became well-known by parents and greatly contributed to the efforts to stop child marriages.
Here is an example of one of the poems in the book:
Requesting all parents to listen,
And all grandparents,
I am humbling requesting you,
With bowing down,
No one will arrange child marriage,
For their son and daughter,
Don’t push/throw them intentionally into the burden of family life like the ocean.
In family life like ocean,
They will not be able to stay properly,
Everybody will cry loudly,
When they will sink.
Ending child marriage
“I requested that everybody share the poems with their parents so they will not arrange a marriage for their girls. Recently, one girl stopped me on my way to school and told me that her parents have stopped arranging her marriage because they read the poem,” says Mr. Abdus.
The GRSCSI project has supported him to distribute 500 copies of his poetry book among students, parents, teachers, and government officials.
Gender Responsive School and Community Initiative (GRSCSI): Plan International’s project which supports schools and communities to be better prepared for disasters using the Safe School Comprehensive Framework, and supporting youth-led initiatives by the School Safety Champions through gender-sensitive DRR/CCA trainings and the Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment (MHRA) mobile app.
Education, Emergencies, Protection from violence, child marriage, COVID-19, Disaster risk management
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