Dateline: June 14

Tonight Dateline turns its attention to Bangladeshi where girls are married off before they’re fifteen.

It follows a distraught thirteen-year-old bride as she prepares for her wedding.

In Bangladesh, thirteen-year-old Beezly Roy has big dreams. She wants to study and become a doctor.
However, she is preparing for her wedding to an older man that she has met only once.

Despite her marriage being illegal, it is not unusual – a third* of all Bangladeshi girls marry before they are fifteen years old.

Journalist, Tania Rashid gains rare access to Beezly’s wedding preparations as the increasingly distraught young woman faces the prospect of a lifetime of subservience to her older husband. She describes the young bride as “shaking and terrified.”

“[Translated] I didn’t want this wedding…They are marrying me off forcefully”, Beezly tells Tania.
In Bangladesh, having girls is considered a problem because they are “expensive” – especially if they want to study.

Beezly has agreed to the marriage on the condition that she can continue her study; something her husband agrees to before they wed but then changes his mind after the ceremony.

With her husband happy to have a young bride and village elders supporting the illegal marriage, Beezly collapses and is carried to her new home.

Meanwhile, in another rural Bangladeshi community, Keshab Roy, is a young man walking around his village in search of young girls who are ready to marry – but there is something very different about him.

He’s not looking for a bride – he’s trying to stop the ceremonies before they take place.
After losing his own niece to suicide, Keshab has become determined to save the lives of others. So far he has helped at least a dozen young girls.

“[Translated] I keep thinking of her. Why isn’t she here? How many more girls are going to die like this?”

Tuesday 14 June at 9.30pm on SBS.