e_Paper, Sunday, July 23, 2017

News
SUNDAY,
7
JULY 23, 2017
DT
With climate change driving child marriage
risks, Bangladesh fights back
• Reuters
RIGHTS
Climate change-driven extreme
weather – from flooding and mudslides
to blistering heat – is accelerating
migration to Bangladesh’s
cities, raising the risks of problems
such as child marriage, according
to UNICEF’s head of Bangladesh
programmes.
“In Bangladesh, climate change
is in your face. You can’t avoid it.
You can see it happening,” said
Sheema Sen Gupta in an interview
in London with the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
“Every year you have cyclones,
floods, landslides. It’s a given. It’s
now part of everyday living, and
the clearest thing you see (from it)
is rural to urban migration.”
But surging migration to cities
by rural families no longer able to
make a living from farming or fishing
brings other threats, from worsening
urban overcrowding to child
marriage, as families seek to keep
girls “safe” in a new environments.
“I hesitate to say climate change
and urbanisation are the major
causes of child marriage. But they
do compound it and make it a bit
more difficult to intervene,” said Sen
Gupta, who has been in Bangladesh
for seven months and previously
worked for UNICEF in India, Sri Lanka,
Myanmar, Ghana and Somalia.
However, innovative efforts
to curb the threat – particularly
training young people to help each
Hefazat chief Shafi flown
to Delhi for treatment
• Anwar Hussain, Chittagong
NATION
Ailing Hefazat-e-Islam chief Shah
Ahmed Shafi has left Dhaka for
New Delhi for better treatment.
Azizul Haque Islamabadi, central
organising secretary of the
Islamist platform, told the Dhaka
Tribune that a flight carrying Shafi
left Hazrat Shahjalal International
Airport at 10am Saturday.
“He [Shafi] has been suffering
from various old age complications.
He is now taking liquid food
through tube. His respiratory problem
has also worsened. That’s why
he is going Delhi for better treatment.
Delhi’s Deoband Madrasa
teacher Arshad Madani will look
after him during the treatment session,”
Azizul said.
The 96-year-old was undergoing
Across Bangladesh, more than 4,000 youth clubs have been set up which gather young people regularly to listen to radio
broadcasts on human rights issues, health, nutrition and other topics, and then discuss the issues
REUTERS
other – are paying off, with Bangladesh’s
government now incorporating
programmes started by
organisations such as UNICEF and
Save the Children, she said.
Across Bangladesh, more than
4,000 youth clubs have been set
up which gather young people regularly
to listen to radio broadcasts
on human rights issues, health, nutrition
and other topics, and then
discuss the issues.
Youth Initiatives
Preventing child marriage is one of
treatment at a private hospital in
Chittagong city after he fell sick on
May 18.
He was flown to Dhaka on June
6 after his condition deteriorated.
Doctors at Asgar Ali Hospital in
Gendaria treated him for old age
complications and released him
from the hospital on July 10.
The controversial nonagenarian
leader, who is known as Boro
Hujur (the oldest cleric) among his
followers, is heavily lambasted by
progressive people for his highly
prejudicial views on various social
issues and also for the radical Islamist
platform’s pledge of Islamising
Bangladesh.
Shafi is the rector of Al-Jamiatul
Ahlia Darul Ulum Moinul Islam, also
known as Hathazari Madrasa, and
the chairman of Befaqul Madarisil
Arabia Bangladesh, the largest Qawmi
Madrasa board in the country. •
15 years on, no disability allowance
for Mir Kashem
• Abdul Aziz, Coxs Bazar
NATION
Despite being
a physically
and psychologically
challenged
person, Mir
Kashem of
Ramu upazila
Cox’s Bazar
have repeatedly
been
approaching
the administration to get his disability
allowance for the last 15 years.
An inhabitant of Ilishia village of
Joyarinala Union Parishad under the
upazila, Kashem, who has been speech
impaired for last 30 years, is visiting
the government offices for last 15 years
after the allowance was introduced.
the main focuses of the groups, Sen
Gupta said, with members keeping
an eye out in the community for
girls at risk, and then, if they see a
threat, alerting community leaders,
who are able to step in.
“The best tool is the adolescents
themselves,” she said “They intervene
– they know who to contact,
they have a helpline. They call and
say a marriage is planned.”
Better yet, said Sen Gupta, a psychologist
by training, the groups
have created a growing conviction
among many girls that early marriage
is not only bad for their health
and prospects, but something they
can avoid with community support.
“Adolescents themselves are
more able to say ‘I’m not getting
married’” she said. “Girls are able
to stand up to their parents.”
Monitoring of child marriage
rates over the last two years suggests
that numbers are falling, but
Sen Gupta said UNICEF is not yet
fully confident of the data.
Bangladesh in February passed
a Child Marriage Restraint Act,
His mother Nur Jahan had been
looking after him since his father Hazi
Yusuf Ali passed away 12 years ago.
But, she too died two weeks ago
making him an orphan. Kashem cannot
explain people about his problems and
he can not walk either.
“We have visited different government
offices for my brothers disability
allowance for last 15 years, but the
wait is not over yet,” said his brother
Mofizur Rahman, a schoolteacher at
Sabrang upazila of Teknaf.
It has become very difficult for
Mofizur to look after his brother as he
comes to Ramu every Thursday and
have to go back to Teknaf on Saturdays.
The 30-year-old disabled Mir Kashem
is yet to get any help from government
or private sources. Although it
has passed 15 years after introduction
of disabled allowance by government,
but his name is not enlisted there yet.
Their parents, while alive, had tried
which bans marriage of girls under
18 – a significant change in a
country where 18 percent of girls
are married before 15 and more
than half by 18, according to a 2016
UNICEF study.
However, the new ban has a
gaping loophole that allows parents
to agree to such marriages in
“exceptional circumstances” with
a magistrate’s approval, Sen Gupta
said.
UNICEF and other partners are
now “trying to frame the rules
about what the exception is so
everything doesn’t become an exception”,
she said.
Sen Gupta said that low-lying
and densely populated Bangladesh,
widely seen as one of the
countries most vulnerable to climate
change, sees the risks and has
proved adept at scaling up successful
pilot efforts run by non-governmental
organizations into broader
government-run programmes.
“Bangladesh has a good framework
of climate adaptation, based
on the fact that they need to survive,”
she said. “Clearly there is an
awareness (climate impacts) are increasing
and we need to do something.”
That is an attitude needed more
globally, she said.
“People need to understand
how important this is for kids,
for their rights, for their development,”
she said. “If we don’t look at
climate change, at addressing these
issues, we won’t make the progress
we’re committed to making.” •
hard and soul to have Kashem’s name
enlisted for the allowance, but in vain.
Now, his brother Mofizur is fighting to
do something for him. When asked,
local UP member Mofizur Rahman said
said he was unaware about the matter.
“I will try to enlist his [Kashem’s]
name this time,” said the UP member,
who is now serving his third term.
Cox’s Bazar Social Welfare Directorate
Deputy director Pritam Kumar
Chowdhury said: “After the allowance
was introduced, the upazila social welfare
office enlisted names of disabled
people as suggested by local UP chairman
and members. As the local Union
Parishad could not submit the name of
Mir Kashem, it was not included.”
Ramu Upazila Nirbahi Officer
Shahajahan Ali said: “I came to know
about the matter. Instructions have
been made so that Mir Kashem gets
all government facilities, including
disability allowance soon.” •