Monitor initiatives for curbing violence against women: Experts

Highlights:

Expert recommendations for Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey:

• Eliminate data gap
• Add new indicators to make it more comprehensive
• Include types of remedies sought by victim women
• Find out if the women seek advice, and if they do, from whom they are seeking it
• Survey if women have power to make decisions about children's education

Identifying the causes of violence against women and monitoring the effectiveness of initiatives taken to prevent them are essential to achieve the SDG target of eliminating such incidents by 2030, said experts at a roundtable discussion Tuesday.

"Merely taking up projects to eliminate gender-based violence is not enough. Monitoring the progress of such projects is also necessary. It will not be appropriate to discuss in 2025 the same issues that we are discussing now. We need to understand how much the situation has improved and monitoring is essential for that," said Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, founder and chairman of the PPRC, at the programme, titled "Are Existing Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Indicators Sufficient?".

Eliminating gender-based violence is a priority because it is a human rights obligation to ensure social justice, remove barriers to women's economic and social participation, improve women's health, and reduce inter-generational trauma, said Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman at the programme, moderated by Inam Ahmed, editor of The Business Standard.

Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) jointly organised the roundtable discussion, at which The Business Standard was media partner.

Speakers at the programme recommended that the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) should take measures to eliminate data gaps in the Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey scheduled to be conducted in 2023 and add new indicators to make it more comprehensive.

M Shahidul Islam, chief of population planning and research at UNFPA, said, "The VAW survey conducted by the BBS with the help of the development partner was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but we have started the work. The survey will be completed in 2023."

He noted that the Covid-19 pandemic and the social media had added many new dimensions to the issue of violence against women, which would be included in the survey.

At the programme, Asma Akhter, deputy director of Demography and Health Wing at BBS, and Mohammad Abdul Wazed, senior fellow of PPRC, presented the methodological approach and data on conducting the third round of the Gender Based Violence Survey next year. Earlier, the BBS conducted the survey in 2011 and 2015.

Farah Kabir, country director of ActionAid Bangladesh, said in a survey conducted by the organisation in 2018 it was found that 72% of women never reported violence against them. Around 66% of the cases of violence against women were in the category of domestic violence committed by partners. About 80% of the surveyed women said they did not trust the law enforcement agencies. Meanwhile, 75% of media reports regarding VAW are on incidents of dowry, rape, gang rape, but they do not project other forms violence.

Farah Kabir said the BBS could use these data in its survey.

She also said according to their 2021 survey on cyber violence, most women still do not have enough computer literacy to protect themselves in the online environment. Around 50% of women reported that they were victims of online violence.

Sara Hossain, honorary executive director of BLAST, said most women seeking measures or legal actions to stop violence against them, even in domestic situations, want economic remedies, not punishment for perpetrators. So the surveyors should ask the women what kind of remedies they want.

Besides, many women call hotlines and seek advice or go for informal measures like arbitration. Before taking any measures, policymakers should find out if the women are seeking advice, and if they do, from whom they are seeking it, said Sara Hossain.

Nobonita Chowdhury, head of Gender Justice and Diversity at Brac, said that in a survey conducted by it in 14 upazilas of Rangpur and Satkhira, it was found that many women were not safe in their husbands' homes.

In the upcoming survey, women's economic status, educational qualifications, family planning and whether they have the power to make decisions about children's education should be included, she said.

Mainul Islam, professor at the Population Science Department at Dhaka University, said the survey should include information on adolescent girls, slum children, ethnic population and trafficking.

As women's entry into the formal labour market is increasing, information on the types of violence they experience in the workplace must be obtained, he added.