Bangladesh has always held a high place in the world rankings when it comes to child marriage within its borders. Considering the girl child as a burden on the limited earnings of the poor parents has been found to be the main reason behind this. The Child Marriage Prevention Loan by IPDC and powered by Amal Foundation, an NGO specializing in preventing child marriage addresses this very age-old mindset, intervening in the practice by giving underprivileged parents the opportunity to set up their own sustainable businesses if they sign a contract and pledge to not marry their underaged daughter off

Bangladesh is home to 38 million child brides, including currently married girls along with women who were first married in childhood, making it among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest levels of child marriage. Out of the 38 million, 13 million married before age 15 and this happened even though the minimum legal age of marriage for females in Bangladesh is 18 years. Child brides experience the detrimental physical, psychological, and social consequences of child marriage. This also deprives girls of their right to education as many girls drop out of school after entering wedlock. IPDC, one of Bangladesh’s largest non-banking financial institutes, believes in offering financial products tailored to one’s needs so that one can explore a world full of unbound possibilities. Being tremendously passionate about women empowerment, IPDC always had the urge to take initiatives to address this burning issue of child marriage.

To combat the burning issue of child marriage, IPDC joined hands with Amal Foundation, an NGO specializing in preventing child marriage to come up with this unique initiative. The initiative provides underprivileged parents with a zero interest, zero collateral, conditional microfinance loan with an aim to eliminate child marriage, ensure girls education and bring financial stability to the family. The conditions are as follows: loan applicants must be parents of a girl child aged 12-18 years, the girl child cannot be married before the legal age, the girl child must be educated until end of high school.

The initiative involves receiving, verifying, and approving loan applications from interested parents based on the above-mentioned conditions. The condition in the agreement confronts the age-old mindset about girl child and bind the parents to refrain from marrying the girl child off before the legal age.

Thinking of the girl child as a burden on their parents’ limited earnings is an age-old problem in rural Bangladesh and marrying her off has been seen as a possible solution. Though it never broke anyone out of the vicious cycle of poverty, the mindset has been deep-seated for generations.

The ongoing pandemic escalated this for the daily wage earners, who as many know, flock to metropolitan cities for work. However, as multiple Covid-19 lockdowns took away their sources of income, they were forced to migrate back to their villages across rural Bangladesh.

Once back, with dwindling savings and mouths to feed, many parents opted to marry off their young girl children to rid themselves of the burden of upbringing, and the high dowry associated with a late marriage.

Doing so, not only robs the young women of their childhood and education, but also their health, and economic emancipation.

The initiative involves receiving, verifying, and approving loan applications from interested parents based on the conditions. Launched in the Bogra District of the northwestern Bangladesh in March 2022, the initiative gives underprivileged parents the opportunity to set up their own sustainable businesses if the conditions of the loan are followed. Once verification is done and background information are collected, loan recipients sign a contract and publicly pledge in front of their communities to uphold the conditions.

After receiving the loan from IPDC, the partner NGO Amal Foundation steps in to provide operational training and to set up sustainable businesses for the parents.

Soon after a 30-day grace period, Amal Foundation, on behalf of IPDC, starts collecting weekly loan installments while monitoring the girl’s education and her parents’ business. The collected installments are then recycled to finance more loans for other interested parents, making the initiative a self-sustaining one.

Despite offering free education till higher secondary for the girls, child marriage was not reducing at an expected rate as the underprivileged parents still consider the girl child to be a burden. Through the Child Marriage Prevention Loan, IPDC, and the Amal Foundation hope to help eliminate discrimination by turning girl children into assets and alleviate poverty by providing a fixed income source to underprivileged families across rural Bangladesh.

Since the launch In March 2022, the initiative has been rolled in 160 villages in 32 districts. Right after the launch, it garnered good response from the communities and the media. 5000 loans are now ready for disbursement, and it earned a PR reach of 49.6 million and garnered PR value worth of USD 679,216.

Bangladesh is home to 38 million child brides, including currently married girls along with women who were first married in childhood, making it among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest levels of child marriage. Out of the 38 million, 13 million married before age 15 and this happened even though the minimum legal age of marriage for females in Bangladesh is 18 years. Considering the girl child as a burden on the limited earnings of the poor parents has been found to be the main reason behind this. It’s an age-old mindset of treating the girl child as a burden and a boy child as an asset. As a result, child marriage has been a way of reducing that burden by the underprivileged parents for generations. This deprives girls of their right to education as many girls drop out of school after entering wedlock.