Bhavna, 15, Stopped Her Own Child Marriage and Chased Her Dream

While other girls played bride, Bhavna pictured herself in a white apron, moving between hospital beds, caring for patients with a smile. She never dreamed of a wedding. She dreamed of healing people.

That dream is what gave a terrified 15-year-old the courage to run door to door, searching for someone to stop a marriage she never wanted.

The pandemic had upended her family in Vatara, one of Dhaka's busiest neighborhoods. Her mother lost her job. Her father, a driver, lost his income. School fees became impossible, and Bhavna's education stopped. Her parents saw only one way forward: marry their daughter to a 40-year-old man.

Bhavna was 15 and she pleaded against it, but the wedding preparations moved faster than her voice could carry. With two days left, she made a decision that would change everything: she secretly reached out to the Vice President of her local Child Forum.

Members of the Child Forum, Youth Forum, and Urban Neighborhood Development Committee arrived at her home and spoke with her parents about the risks of child marriage and what their daughter stood to lose and gain. After hours of conversation, her parents called off the wedding.

"If no one had stood beside me that day, I would probably be a teenage wife  or a mother by now," Bhavna says.

She had joined World Vision's child sponsorship program back in 2011, and the awareness she built through it became the knowledge that saved her own future.

The road since hasn't been easy. Average SSC results didn't stop her. She tutored other students to fund her own studies, improved dramatically in her HSC exams, and is now finishing a Diploma in Pathology, interning in a hospital's Blood Transfusion Department.

When her father was seriously injured in an accident, Bhavna became her family's main earner the daughter once seen as a burden now standing as their strength.

Story By Lipy Mary Rodrigues
Communication Specialist – Impact Storytelling, World Vision Bangladesh