What’s left of the Stewart hotel sits on a steep hill overlooking sheep-flecked fields, tumbling hedgerows and distant snow-capped mountains in Appin, west Scotland. Even in its prime, the 37-bedroom hotel would have been an eyesore, but now it’s a wreck, the windows smashed, the roof collapsed by months of winter rain.
Just a few years ago, hundreds of tourists passed through this hotel each summer, drawn by the natural beauty of the West Highlands. According to scathing reviews on TripAdvisor and other travel websites, the view was the only good thing about the hotel. Archived posts say the rooms were filthy, the taps broken, the food inedible. Many reviewers complain about the staff, describing them as overwhelmed, unskilled and incompetent.
What the guests didn’t know was that...
Child marriage in Bangladesh could drop by up to one-third if girls receive educational support or skills training, according to a study looking at ways to combat the practice in a country with one of the highest prevalence rates.
The Population Council’s Bangladeshi Association for Life Skills, Income and Knowledge for Adolescents (Balika) project evaluated the success of three approaches in delaying the number of girls under 18 being married off.
Bangladesh has the fourth highest rate of child marriage in the world. In terms of absolute
About 67 per cent of girls in the country get married before the age of 18, said a research on ‘Child Marriage and its implications’.
The information came out at a discussion at Nawab Nabab Ali Chowdhury Senate House Conference Hall at Dhaka University (DU).
The Department of Population Sciences of DU and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) jointly conducted the study with the support of Department for International Development (DID).
The study said, in households where fathers have higher secondary and above education, the
When Rubina Yeasmin was 13, her father died of a heart attack. Her mother scraped together the money to keep her in school but finances became increasingly tight. “My uncle said I must leave school and get married.”
She grew up in Topshe village in Dinajpur district, in northern Bangladesh. According to a Unicef report (pdf) published last year, 65% of girls in Bangladesh are married before the age of 18, and 29% before they are 15. For poor families, early marriage can ease financial pressure as it means one less mouth to feed. It can also negate the need for girls to be educated.
Yeasmin refused to marry and fought to be allowed to complete her education. Her family gave
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In late November, a 52,000-ton barge eased into this ramshackle port on the Bay of Bengal and came to rest on a wide, muddy beach.
After nearly four decades crisscrossing the oceans for an American offshore engineering company, the DB-101 did not come to erect another oil rig or lay miles of undersea pipe.
It came here to die.
For scores of large commercial vessels that reach the end of their seagoing lives each year, the final port of call is Chittagong in southern Bangladesh, home to the world’s largest — and least regulated — ship-breaking industry.
Jean Lebel, President of Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), was joined by co-editor Hameeda Hossain, a human rights activist and researcher, to launch Of the Nation Born: the Bangladesh Papers. The book charts women’s journeys toward justice, accountability, and dignity in Bangladesh after being subjected to sexual violence during and after the 1971 liberation war.
The formal release of the book took place with a ribbon-cutting ceremony o...
