Dhaka, Oct 03 (V7N)- Bangladesh is moving to digitise marriage and divorce registration, a system expected to help prevent child marriage, concealed marriages, polygamy and registration-related fraud, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Md Asaduzzaman has said.
The minister made the remarks while inaugurating a 10-day residential training programme on the use of software for online marriage and divorce registration at the BRAC Learning Centre in Dhaka on Saturday.
He said information from the online marriage registration system would gradually be linked with the central databases of the National Identity Card (NID), birth registration and passport systems. This will allow authorities to verify an individual's identity and marital status more efficiently.
Asaduzzaman said the digital system would make it more difficult to conceal an existing marriage and could help identify cases of child marriage and unauthorised polygamy.
He said all Nikah registrars, commonly known as qazis, across the country would gradually be trained and brought under the digital registration system.
The government has already begun preparations for a pilot programme covering 102 unions across 10 upazilas in 10 districts. The system is also being connected with NID and birth and death registration databases for age and identity verification.
The online marriage registration software is reportedly about 95 percent complete, while API connections with the NID and birth and death registration databases have already been established. The pilot project is expected to cost around Tk 11 crore.
The minister also said the government plans to introduce a lottery-based system for appointing or posting sub-registrars in Dhaka, with the aim of reducing longstanding influence over such postings.
The digital registration initiative is being implemented under the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics project of the Law and Justice Division, with BRAC involved in developing the required ICT infrastructure.
END/SMA/AJ
