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Hiring Consultant/Consulting Firm to Conduct Marriage Registration: A Pathway to Protection and Empowerment Background Plan is an international and nongovernmental organisation which has been working over 75 countries for more than 80 years to advance children’s rights and equality for girls. Plan International has been operating in Bangladesh since 1994, helping children access their rights to health, education, economic security and protection. Very recently, Plan has launched its country strategy V (CS 2030), which has set a new vision for the organization. The vision is: We will partner to empower girls and young women, to be heard, to live without fear of violence and to achieve their rights. The vision has been drawn from a consultative workshop with the adolescents, youth and the staff members of Plan International Bangladesh. In that workshop, the adolescents and youth were constantly talking about the risk and reality of violence which they felt across all areas of their lives i.e. at home, at educational institutes, at the workplace, when traveling on public transport, and even while walking down the street. As they mentioned, the fear and experience of violence, whether physical or verbal was a significant barrier for them to reach to their full potential, especially for girls. Marriage is an event of great social and cultural importance to women and men in most of the societies where childbirth is not socially acceptable without marital bond. According to Bangladeshi civil law, marriages in Bangladesh require registration with the appropriate marriage register as marriage registration is the process of officially logging with the government authority. Without marriage registration, marriages are invisible to the government which means they could miss out on their rights being protected and upheld as well as essential services such as health care. A marriage registration is very important to prove the legal status of the marriage and to ensure the rights of the women at the time of divorce or other miscellaneous distractive situation in the conjugal life of a couple. Marriage registration provides legal support against child marriage and can influence the division of assets in the event of divorce or separation. It can affect who has custody of the children and in some countries, it is required to register the birth of a child. In others it is directly linked to property and inheritance rights upon death of a spouse. In Bangladesh many communities like Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians live in together and they have different systems of religious practices according to their own religious norms but the important issue is there is no uniform and mandatory provision for all the communities for marriage registration and marriage can easily be completed without any registration. Poor and illiterate people are not aware of the importance of having a marriage registration. In an unregistered marriage, a husband can easily deny the marriage due to the absence of any documentary evidence, a woman benefits from documentation of the marriage because it increases her chances of being able to access the inherent rights of a wife in a Muslim marriage as well as any rights the bride may have negotiated with the groom in the marriage contract in which the terms and conditions are explicitly without any ambiguity. There is no worldwide data available on the occurrence of marriage events and this often leaves women in a vulnerable position. In the worst cases, poor recording of marriage events can lead to cases of child marriage. Marital arrangements often determine significant aspects of the lives of women and girls, therefore the data associated with marriage and divorce registration is critical to understand some of the subsequent vulnerabilities that they experience. Marriage registration processes are often complex. In many countries religious and/or traditional ceremonies are recognised and practiced whereas civil registration processes are largely ignored due to bureaucracy, lack of cultural acceptance and cost. The purpose of this study is to establish an understanding of the current state of marriage registration (through qualitative and quantitative parameters) and provide recommendations. (given in Annex 1, specific objectives) Given the situation, Plan International Bangladesh has planned to conduct a research to understand the overall situation of marriage registration in Bangladesh. The research will also explore the knowledge, attitude, motivation, challenges and experience of marriage registration in different contexts. A consultant/consulting firm will be contracted out on behalf of Plan International Bangladesh to carry out this research as per this Terms of Reference (TOR). Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment can be downloaded from this link. Submission of Proposal The technical and financial proposals should be submitted electronically to the email address: Proposal submitted to any other email account except this and in hard copy will be treated as disqualified. Submissions deadline 16th March, 2021 Both technical and financial proposal should be submitted PDF format into one zip folder with a covering letter addressing to Mr. Enamul Haque, Supply & Procurement Specialist, Plan International Bangladesh. |
