Child marriage another type of rape

A K Azad: Statutory rape refers to sexual relations involving someone below the `age of consent`. People below the age of consent cannot legally respond to having sex. This means that sex with them, by definition, violates the law.

 

Statutory rape differs from other types of rape, and from child molestation, in that the act would not be a crime if all participants were above the age of consent. Unlike `forcible rape,` statutory rape can involve underage participants who willingly engage in sexual relations.

 

However, because those under the age of consent cannot give legal consent to sex, the act is a crime whether or not force is involved. If the act involves force or coercion, many states prosecute the offender under the separate statutes punishing child molestation or aggravated rape.

 

Statutory rape laws vary from state to state, with states setting the age of consent differently, as well as using different names to refer to this crime. Many states punish statutory rape under laws addressing sexual assault, rape, unlawful sexual intercourse or carnal knowledge of a child.

 

 

For example, in some states sexual relations with someone less than 12 or 14 years old constitutes a first degree felony, while sex with someone older but still below the age of consent, might be a misdemeanor or lower level felony. In other states, any act of statutory rape constitutes a felony, with serious and sometimes mandatory jail sentences resulting.

 

Child Marriage

There has been much talk on child marriage for the last few years but, most probably, in vain. Of course, we know child marriage is a violation of human right. Not only that it adversely affects education, health and wellbeing of girls and perpetuates cycles of poverty.

 

But people of Bangladesh are still not aware of this fact. We still marry off our adolescent girls who are not able to make decision about their marriage. As a result, it has become an epidemic in the country and required the government to act on its promises to tackle the problem.

 

Unfortunately, Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with 29% of girls marrying before the age of 15, and 65% of girls marrying before they turn 18, according to UNICEF.

 

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) also estimates that two percent of girls in Bangladesh marry by the age of 11. Even HRW researched child marriage in Bangladesh, the youngest bride it was 10 years old. That is obviously a horrifying matter.

 

The detrimental effects of early marriage on a girl can not be overstated. Most young brides drop out of school. Pregnant girls from 15-20 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as those 20 or older, while girls under 15 face the risk five times more.

 

Behind the fact, there is also another regretted matter. Though we know the minimum legal age of marriage for females in Bangladesh is 18 years and 21 for males. We force our adolescent girls being raped through child marriage as we think the practice is socially recognized. So we allowed the girls being tortured and raped.

 

Many can contradict with me to say it `forced rape`, but it is true that the married off girls aged lower than 15 are not matured enough to take decisions.

 

 

 

In most cases, the girls who become victims of child marriage can not make their consents to having sex and it may called ‘rape’ or statutory rape that is punishable crime in many states or countries.

 

The incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina recently at the Columbia University`s `World Leaders Forum`  has promised to end child marriage of under-15s by 2021 and reduce by more than one-third the number of girls married between the ages of 15 and 18, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the practice by 2041.

 

Though there are laws to prevent child marriage, these are not implemented strictly. In most cases, the people accused of child marriage are given mild punishment. And that’s why; the practice is not being eliminated from our society.

 

The government should enact a strict law to prevent this regarding it as rape or statutory rape like many other countries, so that the person, who wishes to marry any underage girl, can not dare to do that.

 

risingbd/DHAKA/Nov 26, 2015/Azad/Augustin Sujan