Barisal District Administration yesterday announced that it would take measures to bring down child marriages to zero in the district.

To address the issue, it arranged a gathering of marriage registrars, teachers, government officials and professionals at the Barisal circuit house where Deputy Commissioner Gazi Md Saifuzzaman made the announcement.

The district administration averted 14 child marriages in April.

The DC said such effort would continue and that everyone's active participation was necessary to end the social problem. 

At present, Barisal district has more than 2.26 lakh males aged above 12 and below 21 and 1.77 lakh females above 12 and below 18 years.

The youths of this age ranges are likely to fall victim to child marriages and so the administration has been planning to hold programmes to build awareness, sources at the district administration said.

Participants at yesterday's programme put forward a few suggestions and the administration accepted them.

The recommendations include asking marriage registrars to submit a monthly report to the district administration, setting up of a monitoring cell comprised of government officials, NGO staff and different professionals and forming a youth-based committee in every ward and union to collect information about marriages taking place.

Speakers also emphasised the need for children's education, health, proper sanitation and entertainment to tackle the problem.

Everyone in society should be made aware of the problem to improve the lives of children, Divisional Commissioner Md Gaus said at the gathering.