‘Game-Changer’ Mobile App Aims to End Bangladesh Child Marriage
A new phone app could be a "game-changer" in the fight against child marriage in Bangladesh, where more than half of all girls are married before they are 18, children's charity Plan International said on Monday. The impoverished South Asian nation has one of the world's highest rates of child marriage, according to UNICEF, despite laws that ban girls under 18 and men under 21 from marrying. The mobile app being rolled out by Plan and the Bangladesh government aims to prevent it by allowing matchmakers, priests and officers who register marriages to verify the bride and groom's ages through a digital database. "If we could get the people involved in the initial stages of marriage on side as well, then there would be no one to solemnize, no one…