Dhaka, Bangladesh. Flickr/mariusz kluzniak. Some rights reserved.
It was less glamorous than the Angelina Jolie-backed Foreign Office initiative to combat sexual violence in conflict, but the last British government was also active internationally on child marriage. This included a “Girl Summit” hosted last summer in London by David Cameron and attended by several world leaders, and a growing focus on child marriage in the programmes of the Department for International Development (DFID), championed by Justine Greening.
If the government wants to build on this important work in the coming Parliament – and it should – Bangladesh is an absolutely critical country to focus on. First, it has the highest rate of child marriage under the age of 15 in the world (29 per cent). Second, the country’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made concrete and public promises to address child marriage at London’s Girl Summit. Third, the UK is the second largest government aid donor to Bangladesh, giving it important leverage.
