My success: Bilkis’s story

A teenage girl living in Bangladesh tells how she overcame family expectations of early marriage in order to continue her education and reach her full potential.

“My name is Bilkis and I am sixteen years old. I’ll be taking my secondary school certificate examination in 2007. I want to tell the most significant story of my life, as I know the same might happen to another teenager in my country.

Three years ago when I was thirteen, I came home from school one day and I was informed by my parents that my marriage had been fixed.
Everything was settled – the groom, the date of the event and so on. All I was asked to do was get ready for it. I was dumbfounded by this sudden reality. I didn’t want to think of not going to school any more, but I was silent.

The thought of getting myself out of this situation kept me awake all night.

I am a member of the children’s organisation facilitated by Plan in Bangladesh. We meet to discuss issues and work on different community development activities. Our community has already recognised us as an organisation and values our decisions.

Through the initiative of our organisation, along with the support of Plan and the community development forum, we have been staging awareness-raising plays.

In the play on child marriage, I acted the role of a little girl who gets married off at an early age and the consequences she suffers. My family along with the community watched the drama.

The next morning, I told my parents of my eagerness to continue my studies and that I was not ready for the marriage. I also explained to them the consequences of early marriage.

They listened to me but did not agree with me, saying that they had married young themselves. They also argued that their decision was final and that kids know nothing. I was confident and told them to share their life story and collected stories of other kids who have been recently married at an early age.

The results did not support my family’s views. At this, they were silent.

Since the date for the wedding was fixed and the bridegroom’s family was also adamant, the situation was very complex for my family.
I was assured that it would not interfere with my studies, but I knew it would be difficult for me to continue once I was married and responded, saying, “Ask them to come back when my study is over and I am old enough for marriage.”

I live in a slum named Bawniabadh in Dhaka City. Life is very difficult for the underprivileged adolescent girls in my community. We have to struggle for everything. Most of the girls miss getting proper education, medical care and nutrition.

Many of my friends who took part in staging the drama and are members of the children’s organisation have been married off or have dropped out from education. I wanted to stop the whole system of early marriage in my community and I wanted to set a positive example.

With limited resources, the community along with Plan tries to ensure children’s education and stop them from entering into marriage too early.

I am powerful in terms of voicing my ideas, issues and concerns. This is because I am involved in an organisation that makes us the experts on our issues. Those meetings yielded invaluable insights and information about the consequences of child marriage without which I would have been lost.

Now if there are any proposals of marriage, my family dismisses it happily. Plan has helped my family change their perspective.

I want to study accounting and become a good teacher as my community has no good teacher of accounting. I also want to work in media like Bangladesh Television’s child programmes to do something meaningful for the children of our community and for the underprivileged children of Bangladesh.

I know Plan will not be working in our community for ever. Someone among us would need to take responsibility for the children and the adolescents. Our children are very resourceful, but they need to be guided.

I want to build my future according to my understanding and dreams. I have already started to work on my dreams. Now, I am teaching sixteen poor kids whose parents are not able to spend money on their education. I believe some day, they too will be able to take strong decisions on their own and be wonderful resourceful individuals.”