KATHMANDU: South Asian parliamentarians are all set to hold a meeting in Kathmandu to discuss child marriage, at Hotel Annapurna, on Tuesday.

Despite legal ban on it, around one-third of the girls in developing countries are vulnerable to the child marriage before they turn 18.

A report  titled "Parliamentary Good Practices for Effective Implementation of Laws and Policies for Prevention of Child Marriage" will be released in the meeting, jointly organised by the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) and the Nepalese Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (NFPPD). The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia and the South Asia Regional Office of the International Planned Parenthood Federation support the meeting.

The report presents 10 case studies of good practices in a wide variety of cultural contexts from seven countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Malawi, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

The report aims to address the root causes of child marriage in target communities, identify barriers and obstacles to the effective implementation of relevant laws and policies, and assess a variety of programmatic and policy approaches to overcoming the problem of child marriage, with a particular focus on measurable, proven results, the AFPPD said in a statement.

The AFPPD hoped that the report can provide parliamentarians with major lessons learned through these good practices and a toolkit for child marriage prevention programming.