It is undeniable that Bangladesh has achieved some progress in improving the condition of women in the last few decades, especially in regards to increasing women's education rate, achieving gender equality in primary education, and reducing the rate of maternal and infant mortality and birth.In spite of this, women and girl children are being constantly subjected to many forms of discrimination and violence in their daily lives. In our society, a girl grows up experiencing different forms of discrimination since birth. Since there are no effective and comprehensive steps taken on the state level to remove these types of discrimination, violence against women and girl children continues to exist.
As the bordering district, Manikganj region is very much prone area, where women and girls are frequently victimized to different forms of violence. Human trafficking and early marriage are rampant, although different GO-NGO bodies have been intervening for the long in the south-western part of the country. Gender-based violence is getting a grave shape as the smart phones and internet are penetrating hugely into the community. Due to mobile connectivity and imprudent usages of social media, girls and women are being trapped and subsequently victimized to sexual abuse and exploitation including human trafficking.
The project titled “Reducing gender based violence through community empowerment” aims to reduce gender based violence through empowering community people especially women making them united, mobilized and action-oriented through awareness campaign and advocacy, lobby and other context-appropriate actions. The project will focus on empowering grass-roots women and at the same time protecting and promoting girls’ rights by the community and other stakeholders.
The strategy includes formation of union-based CBOs consisting of 12- 15 women from different professions and strata of life. i.e. local government representative, teacher, health worker, social worker, leader of NGO beneficiary groups, member of minority groups, representatives from very much marginalized and under privileged communities and so on. The committees will be turned into a self-help group gradually. They will deposit some amount of money periodically and mobilize local resources to address their own issues/challenges as well as local women/girls’ rights issues. With a view to protect and promote women’s rights especially girl’s rights, in association with Human Development for Poor Society(HDPS), the women groups will drive massive campaign in the community level through applying different tools and techniques.
The women groups will always try to use local resources to address the issues arise. For example, in the case of gender-based violence, they will seek support from other organization working in that area and/or government facilities like shelter home, legal aid services, reintegration services etc.
