A Pilot Project to address violence against women in Bangladesh

Case: 2

Rahima is a 5o year old women called to Afreen. She started to say that I am the mother of Nadira. Nadira’s father used to beat me every day without any reasons. I became mother of two children but the violence didn’t get stop. I couldn’t bear the pain. My parents came and took me away from the family. We got divorced. My parents again arranged marriage with a man who is from a wealthy family. Everything is fine here except I could not bring my daughters to me. My previous husband got married again and our two daughters started to live with their step mother. You could imagine the situation of my two daughters. My elder daughter was send to Gazipur to work as a maid servant. She was there under severe violence. I have foods at home, the foods are over flowing. My daughter is working at house hold, no enough foods, no love and affection nothing was there except violence. I could not eat, sleep, I feel helpless, I cry, tears of my eyes do not end-up. My daughter was bringing back to home. Blemish of violence everywhere in her body. Again she was send to a household to work in Dhaka. Apa you are now the mother of my daughter. The mother laments and said, “Try to understand the pain of a poor helpless mother who is not responsible for the situation of her daughter. All of them are suffering. Apa, please take care of my daughter

I want to involve all the famous personalities of Bangladesh to talk to stop violence against women and children. I will involve the religious leaders to talk against violence from the light of holy Quran. The clinician and psychologist will talk about the mental, physical and emotional effect of violence against women and children.

I will also implement a small project in Bangladesh where the prevalence rate of violence against women is high. The decision makers of house hold are mother in laws and husbands. The main perpetrators of violence against women are those two people. Most of the interventions violence against women is designed to make aware the women but they do not have voice to establish their right at the households level. So we have to involve the male and influential family members under intervention to make them aware against violence through showing video, behavior change communication session, delivering message against violence in the Mosque by the influential religious leaders and also will create social movement like a owner of hotel of a village market if beat her wife, the community people will not drink tea from his hotel or people will not buy foods from his grocery shop and the Imam (religious leader) will motivate him by giving knowledge from the religious point of view stop him from that behavior.

This idea is innovative because it will involve the main house hold decision makers to decrease the violence against women. If we do not involve the man and the mother in law who are the main perpetrators and the most influential house holds members in intervention to change behavior, the outcome of the Project is likely not to be successful.