Women cricketers take a stand
England women cricketers have taken a step to fight against early forced marriages of girls around the world. Ahead of the Prime Minister’s Girl Summit 2014, Heather Knight, Lydia Greenway and Tammy Beaumont met two female Bangladeshi cricketers and International Development Minister, Desmond Swayne at the Lord’s cricket ground to talk about various issues related to sports and most importantly the early forced marriages of women.
Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), a Bangladesh-based NGO took two Bangladeshi women cricketers, Mitu Roy (20 years old) and Tania Akter (21 years old), who are leaders and cricket coaches of this club, from their Adolescent Development Programme to take part in UK’s Girl Summit. The summit aims at getting all the practices against women empowerment to an end.
On the issue Desmond Swayne said, “Sport can make a real difference to the lives of girls in developing countries. It gives them a healthy, enjoyable past time, of course. Even more importantly it helps them to establish themselves in their community, raises their status and gives them control over their future. Too often girls around the world are robbed of a choice in life by being forced to marry early. It also puts them at risk of missing an education and dying young in childbirth.”
“UK will host the first Girl Summit, aimed at mobilising domestic and international efforts to end female genital mutilation and child marriage within a generation,” he further added.
Heather Knight, England woman cricketer stated, “Meeting Mitu and Tania today and discussing some of the challenges that they face on a daily basis has been really thought provoking. It is shocking to hear that one in three girls in developing countries is married by the time they are 18, with some of those as young as eight. Charities like BRAC are doing a wonderful job to try to address these issues and I hope that the UK’s Girl Summit will generate the world wide support needed to inspire local and national efforts to end early forced marriage.”
Mitu said: “Through playing cricket in BRAC clubs I have gained the trust of my family as well as the community. Now they know that I can lead my team and solve my problems for myself.”
Tania added: “Playing a sport has made me so confident that now I can talk freely about many other issues with many people and can encourage other girls to do the same.”
The event is followed by a visit the England’s women cricket team made to the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) in Dhaka during the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 competition in March, 2014. At the ASF, the players got the opportunity to see how funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has helped thousands of women and children who have been disfigured in acid attacks.
Have a news story, an interesting write-up or simply a suggestion? Write to us at info@oneworldnews.in
