"My Mother Was a Child Bride"

"Bangladesh has the highest rate of child brides under age 15 in the world, according to Human Rights Watch. Nearly a third of Bangladeshi girls will be married before the age of 15, and 65% will be wed by the age of 18...

Child marriage has been illegal in the region since 1929, but the law is hardly enforced. “In our research, we've never witnessed or heard through second-hand sources of anyone ever being arrested or prosecuted for arranging or performing a child marriage,” said Barr...

My mother, Fardowsi, comes from a relatively well-to-do family. She grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, and lived a very modern life. She was intelligent, athletic, and several grades ahead in school. She was a tomboy with fiery curly hair and huge doe eyes, and her beauty was hard to miss. She was one of the popular girls in her class. She wore bell-bottoms and tunics instead of saris. She listened to the latest music on the radio and fought with her sister over whose favorite movie star was better. She read voraciously and dreamt of traveling to San Francisco, like her favorite detective character had...

When Bangladesh was trying to break free from Pakistan during its fight for independence in 1971, thousands of young girls and women were raped by the Pakistani army. These rapes profoundly impacted the way females were viewed in the country.

Even 36 years later, sexual harassment is still a huge issue in Bangladesh. Barr said that the government continues to do very little to help girls combat it, "so parents feel that getting the girl married is the best option to protect her and the family’s reputation."...

The pact was something like this: if my father settled down, he could have a beautiful, virgin bride; if my mother's parents agreed to the union, it meant lifelong protection for her."

http://www.refinery29.com/2015/09/93968/my-mother-was-a-child-bride?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=post&unique_id=entry_93968