Empower Girls with Knowledge to Combat Child Marriage

In Bangladesh, many underage girls from impoverished families are forced to drop out of school and get married early, depriving them of their autonomy. Since 2022, Plan International has launched the “From Child Brides to Bookworms” project in Bangladesh. By providing tuition subsidies to girls living in slums, we prevented girls from becoming child brides and allowed them to continue their studies and pursue their dreams, benefitting 2,015 students. Strengthening gender education is the key to eliminating child marriage in the long term. We also implemented the “Girls Not Brides” project that educated girls, parents, and community leaders about the detrimental impacts of child marriage and provided leadership training to 1,395 young women, empowering them to say no to child marriage

Construct Safe Bathing Spaces to Protect Girls from the Threats of Gender-based Violence

Due to limited access to water and sanitation facilities, the bathing spaces in slums have no cover at all and are completely exposed to the public. People of all ages and genders have to take showers in the common areas. For girls living in slums, bathing could be a traumatic experience; not only are their privacy and dignity violated, but they are also at risk of sexual violence. To tackle this situation, Plan International started a project titled “Empowering Girls for Economic Opportunity and Safe Space” in January 2022, which established and renovated bathing spaces, to provide clean water for women in slum areas in Dhaka. The project is jointly undertaken by the residents. They will share the maintenance duties and management costs to ensure the facilities will not fall into disrepair and have a sustainable impact on the community.