Interest-free loans, child marriage prevention and poverty alleviation

As a result of poverty, child marriage has long been a source of concern in Bangladesh.

According to comprehensive studies, parents of girl children in Bangladesh's underprivileged rural areas perceive their female children as a financial and social burden.

Multiple COVID-19 induced lockdowns have drastically affected the lives of minimum to lower than minimum wage employees. They had their sources of income disrupted. Which eventually led them to return to their villages across rural Bangladesh.

Having lost their sources of income, these underprivileged families have resorted to relieving themselves of one particular burden. This burden is the financials required to educate and raise a girl child and the dowry expected with a late marriage.

Due to this, these unfortunate young girls are being robbed of their childhood, education, and health.

Amal Foundation, a local NGO, partnered with IPDC, one of the country's most recognized financial institutions, to tackle the issue at hand. The NGO focuses on poverty alleviation amongst other alarming problems in remote locations.

Both partners collaborated to develop a unique project to prevent child marriage: the IPDC Child Marriage Prevention Loan, powered by Amal Foundation, launched as a pilot project in the Bogra District in March 2022.

The Child Marriage Prevention Loan (CMPL) is a conditional zero-interest microfinance loan that helps poor parents to start their sustainable businesses if they meet the following three criteria. To start, the loan applicants must be parents of a 12- to 18-year-old girl child. Secondly, the girl child cannot be married before the legal age. Lastly, the girl child must be educated until the end of high school.

IPDC and Amal first acquire, validate, and authorize loan applications based on the criteria. Then, parents commit to marry their daughters off only after they are of legal age and have completed high school. The loan is subsequently presented to the parents in front of their local communities by officials from IPDC and Amal Foundation. Amal Foundation aids the parents in establishing sustainable businesses after the loan is issued. They also give business management training..

Starting, these parents have a 30-day grace period. Then, Amal Foundation collects weekly loan instalments on behalf of IPDC and surveys the girl's schooling and the business. These payments are then used to fund more loans for other interested parents.

IPDC and Amal Foundation hope to reduce discrimination through the CMPL by providing sustainable income sources to impoverished families in rural Bangladesh. This, in turn, will help transform these girls from being burdens into assets and help alleviate poverty