Bangladesh faces a worsening crisis of child and forced marriage, driven by legal loopholes, weak enforcement, poverty, and gender inequality, which robs girls of education, health, and future opportunities.

Bangladesh’s child-marriage crisis is also a forced-marriage crisis. Most unions involving girls under 18 are coerced in practice; many “consenting” signatures are extracted under pressure or fear. And coercion does not end at 18: adult women, too, are steered or shoved into marriages through intimidation, isolation, financial control, and—often—outright violence. The upshot is a sprawling system of social compulsion that Bangladesh, despite years of promises, has yet to dismantle.

In 2023, a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics survey reported that 41.6 percent of young women had married before 18, and 8.2 percent had married before 15—up from 32.4 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, in 2021. That reversal came despite high-profile pledges to eliminate child marriage and heavy investments in enforcement and social services. Experts and activists point to a central culprit: the legal architecture itself.

A decade ago, the government floated changes under the Child Marriage Restraint Act (CMRA) that would have lowered the legal age for girls to 16. That rollback never formally took effect, thanks to public outcry. But the politics of “flexibility” lingered. In 2017, lawmakers codified a “special provision” that permits courts—at the request of parents or guardians—to authorize marriages of minors “in the best interests of the minor.” There is no lower bound specified. On paper, 18 remains the threshold; in practice, the exception swallows the rule.

In a system beset by corruption and judicial bottlenecks, such ambiguity is an engraved invitation to abuse. Parents seeking to marry off underage daughters can present the arrangement as protective or economically necessary and procure a court’s blessing. Rights advocates argue this effectively legitimizes child marriage, contradicts Bangladesh’s commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and CEDAW, and—most gravely—sidelines the minor’s free and full consent. The 2014 proposals and the 2017 law drew broad condemnation from civil-society groups and international organizations alike for lacking clear standards for what constitutes a child’s “best interests.”

Weak enforcement compounds the statutory loophole. Local committees are often dormant or dysfunctional; rural areas, where the practice is most entrenched, suffer the largest gaps. Even when authorities intervene, cases often stall or disappear in the bureaucratic process. Corruption greases the skids. The message families receive is unmistakable: if you’re determined, the state won’t stop you.

The drivers are old and new, cultural and climatic. Poverty remains the hard floor; marrying off a daughter shifts perceived financial burdens from the natal family to the in-laws. Gender inequality—policed through the language of “honor,” “virginity,” and “purity”—sanctions confinement and early marriage as moral imperatives. Social panic about adolescent romance spurs preemptive weddings “to prevent elopement.” And climate change adds urgency in cyclone- and flood-prone regions, where displacement and insecurity make early marriage feel like a shield against chaos.

As Shaheen Anam of the Manusher Jonno Foundation has argued, these motives intertwine: fears for safety, pressure to preserve family honor, and the calculus of extreme poverty reinforce one another. The result is a pipeline of teenage brides and, predictably, teenage pregnancies. The BBS survey found that more than a quarter of all pregnant women were between 15 and 19 years old. Health professionals warn that many girls become pregnant twice by 16 in an effort to “secure” their marriage—a grim strategy when bodies and organs are still developing. When pregnancy does not follow quickly, domestic abuse often does.

The harm is not abstract. Consider a documentary vignette: a 13-year-old girl from a poor rural Hindu family, paired with a man more than a decade older. Asked about her hopes, she says, “I can’t be a doctor anymore,” face tight with grief, while her husband smiles and confirms she will not return to school. The clip ricocheted online; viewers called the man’s demeanor “disgusting,” even “psychopathic.” Among urban youth, a dark quip circulates—“Bangladesh itself is an Epstein Island”—an exaggeration, to be sure, but one that gestures at everyday impunity for predation cloaked as matrimony.

Behind such cases lie familiar patterns: trauma, marital rape, obstetric complications, domestic violence, and truncated education. The ideology that equates a girl’s worth with her “purity” insists that marriage is the only safe container for her life—and that her freedom outside it is dangerous by definition. That logic does not expire at 18.

Forced marriage among adult women rarely involves a signed threat; it doesn’t have to. Emotional abuse and social isolation wear down resistance. Economic dependence and the fear of ostracism close the trap. One study of 1,369 women found that roughly 10.7 percent reported being forced into marriage. That figure almost certainly understates the phenomenon: coercion is easier to normalize than to name.

The pattern extends beyond Bangladesh’s borders. Within the Bangladeshi diaspora in the United Kingdom, families have lured girls—some underage, some adults—back to Bangladesh, confiscated passports, and arranged marriages to much older men. The case of Rubie Marie, married at 15 and subjected to repeated rape, spurred tougher British safeguards. Yet those protections stop at the border; countless girls inside Bangladesh confront the same machinery of compulsion with fewer exits.

Every coerced marriage narrows a life; multiplied across a generation, the losses become national. Schools lose students; universities lose applicants; workplaces lose skilled contributors. Bangladesh’s celebrated development gains rely on expanding women’s participation in education and the economy. Forced and child marriage reverse that momentum, creating a “shadow brain drain” in which talent is not exported but extinguished.

What would accountability look like? Start with the law: abolish the “special provision” that allows courts to green-light child marriage in the name of “best interests.” Replace it with unambiguous safeguards that put the minor’s consent—not parental anxiety or economic pressure—at the center. Pair legal clarity with real enforcement: reactive policing is insufficient without local committees that function effectively, frontline officials who are trained and monitored, and incentives that make early marriage more difficult, not easier.

But law can only narrow the path; culture paves the road. Families need reasons to delay marriage that feel practical, not punitive: cash transfers tied to schooling, safe-transport programs for adolescent girls, community-level campaigns that enlist religious and civic leaders, and credible consequences for those who pressure or threaten. Health services must be youth-friendly; schools must be protective. Above all, girls need the tangible confidence that their aspirations count for more than their “purity.”

Bangladesh has never lacked ambition; its economic story is often told as a lesson in tenacity. Bringing that same tenacity to the intimate sphere—where power hides in plain sight—would mark the next chapter—forced and child marriage are not cultural quirks to be indulged. They are violations that steal futures. Ending them is not just a human-rights imperative; it is a development strategy.