12 year old saves girls from child marriages

In most parts of Bangladesh girls are taken as a burden on family.They are totally dependent on their families to support and protect them and pay their dowries. That's the money a father must pay to a future husband to secure a marriage.

Oli is a 12 year old campaigner who goes around the slum where he lives in Dhaka standing up to his elders and telling them why they shouldn't marry off their daughters so young.

"I do this work because I wanted to put a smile back on the face of the parents," says Oli Ahmed. He grins as he says it.

Oli approached Plan International which was already working in his slum in Dhaka.

He told them he wanted to set up a group led by children to try and stop the practice. He goes door to door with a group of friends persuading, scolding and hectoring parents.

At one house, he demands to know why there's no birth certificate for a man's daughter.

There and then, they register her birth and warn the father that they'll be watching him.

"I think we do a better job than the adults… the adults think we're so young and yet we know so much… we're more enthusiastic than the older people."

One NGO worker says that since they started work, the number of child marriages in that area has dropped by as much as 50%.

"I feel very good that a girl's life has been saved because of the work that I've done," says Oli.