When I see my Year 7 girls at school, aged 11 and 12, go past me into Assembly each morning, I am struck forcefully by the contrast with their counterparts at the centre for child domestic workers in Dhaka which I visited with Plan UK during my visit to Bangladesh two weeks ago. This centre …
Category: History
Nov 01
What child marriage really means, and why we should do something about it
Before I travelled to Bangladesh, I knew that child marriage had been identified as a key issue in the country. According to UNICEF’s 2011 State of the World’s Children report, about a third of women in Bangladesh aged 20-24 are married by the age of 15, and 66% of girls will wed before their 18th …
Oct 30
Images of Bangladesh
It is the images of the children – and especially the girls – which will stay with me forever. Those of you who have been following me on Twitter, or who read my blog last Sunday, will know that I have spent the past week in Bangladesh with the children’s charity Plan, on a trip …
Oct 23
Bangladesh calls – embarking on a trip to support Plan UK’s work with children
On Monday I am headed to Gatwick to join the tremendous chief executive of Plan UK, Marie Staunton, on a three day trip to Bangladesh (travelling out on Monday, with full days in Bangladesh on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and travelling back on Friday), to see in practice some of the work that Plan UK …