Teenage girls in Bangladesh are reportedly being forced into marriage by parents who can no longer afford to keep them amid the pandemic crisis.

One married girl, Sharolika Parvin, 16, from the district of Kurigram in the northern Bangladeshi region of Rangpur, enjoyed playing football at regional and national level and was even awarded the best player at the Bangamata Gold Cup school tournament three years ago.

However, her dreams of attending a local college and playing football at a high level have been dashed by the COVID-19 pandemic and decision to marry her off by her cash-strapped parents.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the girl’s parents made her marry a 17-year-old mechanic earlier this year and her in-laws refuse to let her play football anymore.

Also, her new teen hubby plans to take her to the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka soon to be closer to his work.

She said: “My parents’ financial situation went terribly during the coronavirus crisis. Nobody helped us during the pandemic. So they married me off.”

Her farmer dad Shahidul Islam explained: “I have two more sons to raise. Marrying off my daughter helped me reduce the financial burden.”

According to the SCMP report, Parvin lives in a remote village where six other teens she knew from football have been married off during 2021.

School and universities have remained closed in the country since lockdown was first imposed in March 2020.

According to the NGO Brac, Bangladesh has seen a 13 percent increase in child weddings since educational centres were closed, the highest increase in 25 years.

The country is also in the global top 10 for child marriages and around 38 million youngsters are said to have been married off, a child wedding rate of over 50 percent.

The Manusher Jonno Foundation said there were 13,886 child marriages in 84 national regions during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The NGO added that nearly half were only aged between 10 and 15.

Dr Umme Busra Fateha Sultana, professor at the University of Dhaka, said: “We will have to restart our efforts from the beginning with more preparation and force to prevent the rising trends of child marriages in the pandemic.”

Dr Sultana added that many parents marry off their children early by registering their birth dates incorrectly, leading to many experts suspecting the real number of child weddings to be around five times higher than those reported.

According to the SCMP report, Parvin was interviewed while her in-laws were standing nearby, who answered some of the questions posed to her.

She said “I am 18 years old” but later stated that her birth date is 25th December 2005, making her actually 16 years old.

With disappointment on her face, the teen bride was quoted as saying: “My friends are going to play an under-17 football tournament this year, but my in-laws will not let me play. If they do not allow me to play or study, what can I do?”