One in four young Bhutanese women gets married before the age of 18, according to the Bhutan Multiple Indicator Survey 2010. And less than one percent of married girls aged between15 to 17 attend school.
The Education Minister, Thakur Singh Powdyel, said education is empowerment and empowering girls is like empowering family. “And to that end we feel that we are also empowering nation. By educating girls, they have choices and they decide what is good for them and that they get empowered to make their own decision.”
The Officiating Chief Programme Officer of Child Division under the National Commission for Women and Children, Chhoeki Penjor, said what they are looking at, is to ensure that all girls have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. “So to see how we ensure that is to have a comprehensive legal framework.”
Today, Bhutan joined other nations to observe the first International Day of the Girl Child.
Speaking at the occasion, UNICEF Bhutan’s Deputy Representative, Eric Durpaire, said child marriage is rarely seen as a vicious circle of poverty. “Often poor parents, when they are so poor, they think they need to marry off their child to get out of poverty. But, in fact by doing that, they expose the girl to more poverty.”
To address child marriage, the Bhutanese government amended the Marriage act of Bhutan pulling the legal age to 18 for women. And last year, the Child Care Protection Act was passed.
“When a child is married to an adult and you can see the age factor. The child is minor and is economically, socially and emotionally dependent and physically weak and this is how she is exposed to violence and abuse,” said the Director of RENEW Secretariat’s Counseling Department, Tshering Dolkar.
Child marriage also puts girls at risk of early and unwanted pregnancies. Globally, pregnancy related complications are the leading cause of death of young girls.
