Online marriage-divorce registration will prevent child marriage-polygamy-fraud

The government has taken an initiative to introduce digital registration of marriage and divorce in the country to prevent child marriage, polygamy and marriage-related fraud. The activity will be launched on a pilot basis in 102 unions of 10 upazilas in 10 districts initially.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Law and Justice Division and Brac at the Secretariat for the implementation of a related project on Wednesday (September 9).

Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Md Asaduzzaman said at the event that digitalization of the registration system will make verification of age and identity in marriage more accurate. It will also become easier to detect irregularities such as fake marriage certificates, secret marriages and multiple marriages. Citizens will get the facility of quickly verifying their marriage and divorce information as well as obtaining digital certificates.

The initiative has been taken under the project ‘Civil Registration and Vital Statistics: Development of ICT Infrastructure for Marriage and Divorce Registration’. As part of this, the online registration system will be linked with the national identity card and the birth and death registration database. As a result, the identity and age of the concerned person can be verified at the time of registration.

The upazilas under the pilot programme are Kaliganj of Gazipur, Tungipara of Gopalganj, Jhenaigati of Sherpur, Kurigram Sadar, Sundarganj of Gaibandha, Narail Sadar, Kasba of Brahmanbaria, Sylhet Sadar, Chakaria of Cox’s Bazar and Kishoreganj Sadar. If the project is successful, there is a plan to expand the online marriage and divorce registration system across the country in phases based on its experience.

The law minister said Brac has been working at the field level for a long time on prevention of child marriage and women’s rights. The project is being implemented by utilising their experience and technical expertise. The government’s aim is to make citizen services easier by increasing the use of technology as well as ensuring transparency and accountability in the registration system.

The government’s online marriage and divorce registration system platform has also kept the opportunity for online registration for citizens. There is facility to search for information of registered kazi or nikah registrar as well as collect nikahnama and talaknama online and pay fees.

Development work of the online marriage registration software under the project is almost at the final stage. Cloud server, connection with the birth and death registration database and payment system have been linked on a trial basis. About Tk 11 crore has been estimated as expenditure for implementation of the pilot project. The tenure of the project has been fixed from September 30, 2026 to June 30, 2027.

Project Director of the Law and Justice Division Md Azizul Haque and Director of BRAC’s Social Empowerment and Legal Protection Programme Shaswati Biplob signed the memorandum of understanding. Relevant government officials hope that once the entire system is launched, accuracy in preserving marriage and divorce information will increase and it will play an effective role in preventing various irregularities including child marriage.