She was married at 14 and had two children before she reached womanhood. The result is known -- both mother and babies are having different health problems.

Dipti Rani wanted to continue her study, but was forced to marry when in the seventh grade. "I still feel like going to school with friends when I'm in sleep," Dipti, now 18, said, narrating her story during a roundtable at the Prothom Alo's office in the capital yesterday.

The Bangla daily and Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls' Empowerment (IMAGE) jointly organised the discussion.

Dipti said her bothers did not want her to continue study because of "her security" in society.

"I hate my parents' house now because my mother also failed to play a role in favour of me."

She said she did a lot of work in the family, but there was no value of her opinion.

When a child is forced to get married, she remains unprepared for the new situation, and for that she fails to fulfil the expectations and eventually in many cases she faces torture, said Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK).

She told the roundtable that a person has some rights since birth, but sending a girl to a new life without preparation at her early age was a violation of human rights.

Every year 9-10 lakh marriages take place in the country, and half of those females are aged between 15 and 19, while 30 lakh babies are born each year, of which 7.5 lakh are from mothers 15 to 19 years old, said Dr Ubiadur Rob, country director, Population Council Bangladesh.

He said there were 32 to 33 lakh married girls in the country, and 80 percent of them gave birth before reaching 17 years of age.

Farhana Zesmin Hasan, project director of IMAGE, said a large number of girls in Bangladesh were getting married before 18, the official age of adulthood. These girls are getting into conjugal life overnight without any information or preparation and completion of education, she said.

The birth of premature babies is a major cause of child mortality and adolescent girls give birth to more premature babies, said Dr Rabeya Khatun, adolescent expert of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mahmudul Kabir, country director of Terre Des Hommes Netherlands, said loopholes in the birth registration process should be removed as guardians showed their daughter's age to be 18 or more in the birth certificate though their actual age was below 18.

Dr Deen Mohammad Nurul Haque, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said community clinics were playing a huge role to empower women.

Every sector will have to pitch in to prevent child marriage, he said.

Dr Makhduma Nargis, chief coordinator of community clinics, said there were 13,315 community clinics in the country with a workforce of 8 to 9 lakh, and a good number of them were women.

Abdul Qayyum, associate editor of Prothom Alo, moderated the programme, while Mohammad Sharif, line director (MCRH) of Directorate General of Family Planning; Arnob Chakrabarty, managing director of RedOrange; Dr Muhammad Munir Hussain, national programme officer for adolescents and youth of UNFPA,  and Farhana Akhtar, research and knowledge management specialist of IMAGE, addressed the roundtable.