European Union asks Bangladesh not to lower marriage age of girls

The EU Ambassador in Dhaka has said 18 years must be the marriage age for girls and “16 should only be the exception, not the other way round”.

Pierre Mayaudon said on Tuesday that the age must not be lowered for the future of the girls and for projecting “a better international image” of Bangladesh.
 
His comment came when the government has initiated a discussion on the lowering of the age of marriage for girls from 18 to 16, triggering a furore in the international community, including UN agencies, and also local NGOs.
 
Bangladesh has ratified the UN Child Rights Convention that says everyone is a child until the age of 18.
 
The ambassador mentioned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s pledge to end child marriage, which is prevalent in Bangladesh, at a London summit last year, and said “we fully support this demarche”.
 
But he said the age of marriage must not be lowered to ensure their “access to education and a rewarding economic life”.
 
He was speaking at an EU-Unicef joint launching of child rights toolkit in Dhaka. Law minister Anisul Haque and Unicef Chief in Bangladesh Edouard Beigbeder were also present.
 
This toolkit is an EU-Unicef global initiative to fit child rights into all development cooperation. This will guide donors and NGOs, who work in Bangladesh.
 
Minister Haque said the government formulated all policies according to the UN Child Rights Convention.
 
He also acknowledged that investing in children was also better for the nation.
 
The Unicef chief said, “any marriage before 18 years of age is a child marriage”, insisting that there could not be any exception to this.
 
Explaining the new toolkit, the EU envoy said “the child is indeed central” to the EU’s three pillars of the ongoing Seven-Year Development Plan in Bangladesh.
 
He said remarkable economic progress and law enforcement had reduced the risks of today’s Bangladeshi children facing extreme poverty and being involved in child labour.
 
But new challenges await them when a 10-year-old child of today would become a teenager in a middle-income Bangladesh.
 
He cited climate change, violent extremism, bad governance and corruption, and child marriage as the new challenges for them.
 
“Being more vulnerable than adults, they are more likely to fall victim of various challenges that our development priorities try to address,” he said.
 
“A lot remains to be done to bring child rights to an acceptable level”.
 
He, however, said the EU would “stand by your side for offering to the youths of this country a better future”.