Early Marriage among Adolescent Boys and Young Men in Urban Informal Settlements of Bangladesh

Abstract

Early marriage continues to be a major public health concern and a violation of child rights, particularly in developing countries.1 Girls are disproportionately more likely to marry before the age of 18 compared to boys, and the vast majority of research, policy and advocacy on child marriage relates specifically to girls (Parsons et al. 2015; Patton et al. 2016; Svanemyr et al. 2015; Wodon et al. 2017). However, adolescent boys also marry early.2 Although the prevalence of child marriage among boys and young males is lower than girls, in recent times, the global prevalence of early marriages among adolescent boys has gained some prominence. An analysis by the United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF) reported that 115 million boys and men were married before the age of 18 (with one in five before age 15) (Gastón, Misunas, and Cappa 2019). However, in South Asia this rate is around 5% (Malhotra et al. 2011; Verma, Sinha, and Khanna 2013). The Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey 2011 reported that nationally around 4% of men aged 20-24 were married by age 18 (National Institute of Population Research and Training, Mitra and Associates, and ICF International 2013). However, boys residing in poor, urban informal settlements are more likely to marry early compared to the national average, with a study of informal settlements in Dhaka finding that around 46% of males were married before age 18 (Khan 2014). Although the risks and consequences of early marriage differ for boys and girls on account of biological and social differences, the practice is nonetheless a human rights violation for children of both sexes. Similar to child brides, when boys marry early they also face many potentially negative health and economic consequences which threaten their well-being (Greene et al. 2015; Misunas, Gastón, and Cappa 2019). Adolescent boys who marry early experience an abrupt transition to adulthood with pressure to drop out of school and to assume new household financial responsibilities. This potentially impacts their job prospects, owing to being deprived of skills that continued education would have allowed (Gastón, Misunas, and Cappa 2019). Being young, they are often psychologically and socially unprepared to take on the responsibilities that come with marriage and fatherhood (Matlakala, Makhubele, and Mashilo 2018). In spite of this, the vulnerabilities of adolescent boys in early marriages remain largely ignored in the development agenda, which puts more emphasis on the vulnerabilities experienced by girls and women due to the disadvantages the latter face with respect to gender inequality (The Lancet 2015). Boys’ and young men’s experiences and perspectives remain significantly less researched and overwhelmingly neglected by social interventions, policy and advocacy programmes (Greene et al. 2015). 1 ‘Early marriage’ is defined as any marriage or union between two people where one or both partners is under the age of 18 (UNICEF 2005). However, the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017 sets the minimum age of 21 years for males and 18 for females for marriage in Bangladesh (Government of Bangladesh 2017). 2 We prefer to use ‘early marriage’ instead of ‘child marriage’ as ‘child marriage’ is heavily associated with girl’s marriage in the Bangladeshi context. When a boy gets married before their legal age of 21 years, this is considered as an ‘early marriage’ rather than ‘child marriage’.