VIOLENCE against women and girls has been found to be the deadliest, most prevalent, and most pervasive human rights violation in every community across the world, be it rich or poor, literate or illiterate, developed or undeveloped, resulting in the sad demise of a woman every 10 minutes globally. Such omnipresence of violence poses operational challenges for designing protocols and interventions to end violence against women and girls. Globally, almost one in every three women has been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their lifetime, where 30 per cent of women are aged 15 and older. It is frustrating that most incidents are committed by current or former husbands or intimate partners, where more than 26 per cent are subjected to intimate partner violence.
The World Health Organisation policy survey 2023 evidenced that overall, 81 per cent of countries have a multisectoral violence against women policy; just over half (52 per cent) have health sector violence against women protocols. In Bangladesh there are a number of laws and policies with institutional arrangements to safeguard the rights of women and girls, including the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act 2010.听 The one-stop crisis centres established at the medical college hospitals have been designed to provide comprehensive support to women and children victims of violence, offering healthcare, police assistance, legal aid, and other services, but the recent report evidenced that the conviction rate in related cases is less than 2 per cent. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics revealed a high rate of intimate partner violence, with 1 in 2 women aged 15 or over who have ever been married reporting that they have endured physical and sexual violence during their lives. Recently, BBS has also reported an alarming upswing in child marriage, despite the government鈥檚 strong commitment to end marriage of children under 15 by 2021.
Gender disparity remains one of the dominant concerns of women in every cluster of society across Bangladesh. The unequal arrangement for women in Bangladesh maintained by the constitution reflects gender-based discrimination in mainstream society. At the domestic level, during marriages and separations, for example, women鈥檚 right to choice is governed by the personal laws that give more importance to social obligation than personal choice. Unfortunately, women remain unsafe at home, where they are supposed to be the safest. Eminent scholar Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman remarked, 鈥楾he Bangladeshi women are enjoying the freedom of mobility and visibility鈥� as cheap labour in the apparel sector, but they are deprived of their rightful wages.听
In such a reality, marking the 16 Days of Activism 2024, human rights activists from home and abroad are advocating for securing the rights of women and girls. The 16 Days of Activism is a campaign to challenge the violence against women and girls that more than 130 countries have actively joined. This year the campaign is designed considering the fact that the world approaches the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 2025. People in general and the rights activists in particular from across the globe unite to raise awareness about eliminating gender-based violence, challenge discriminatory attitudes, behaviours, and actions, and thus call for better policy response with effective service delivery mechanisms to end violence against women and girls for their betterment. The 16 Days Campaign has been instrumental in organising strategies by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women, where approximately 1,700 organisations around the globe have participated since 1991.
Every year, 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence begins on November 25. This day was chosen to commemorate the death of the three Mirabel sisters, who were detained, tortured, and assassinated in 1960 during the dictatorship of Trujillo (1930-1961) in the Dominican Republic. The period also includes: November 29, International Women鈥檚 Human Rights Defenders Day; December 1, World AIDS Day; December 3, International Day of the Disabled;听December 6, Montreal Massacre Anniversary; and, December 10, World Human Rights Day.
This year, the UNiTE digital campaign for the 16 Days of Activism has been designed to uphold the urgency for action and accountability to end violence against women and girls, with a special focus on gender-related killing of women across communities worldwide. As gender-related killings continue to rise globally, this digital campaign highlights the urgent need to address the continuum of violence and proven solutions. This global digital campaign calls for action at all levels to prevent violence, to hold perpetrators accountable, and to invest in solutions to protect women and girls everywhere. In observance of the 16 days of Activism, the global activists called upon the member states: to accelerate action to ratify and implement international and regional conventions and implement laws and whole-of-government National Action Plans to prevent and respond to VaWG, with adequate resources; to adopt and implement corporate policies on VaWG by the private sector; to strengthen law enforcement and justice sectors, including through gender-responsive policing to hold the perpetrators to account; to ensure women鈥檚 and marginalised groups鈥� meaningful access to gender-responsive justice where they can seek remedies without fear of negative consequences; to raise awareness that VaWG is never acceptable, create zero tolerance across society at large and prevent violence through transforming harmful social norms; and, to enhance women鈥檚 rights movements鈥� access to flexible, sustainable, and quality funding to fulfill their missions.
Bangladesh has been in the era of bringing reform to the national laws and policies following the changes in the country鈥檚 political landscape. The interim government has already initiated several reform agendas, formulating numerous reform commissions. It is imperative to form an independent Women鈥檚 Commission with a special assignment to examine the laws and policies protecting the rights of women and enabling institutional capacity to deal with the cases of violence against women and to pursue speedy trials towards landmark judgments for women through effective reform in the justice sector. It is time for Bangladesh to move beyond misconceptions and embrace a more inclusive approach that recognises the inherent value of every individual, regardless of their gender differences, bringing necessary changes in the health sector, ensuring effective implementation of the existing policies, and creating an enabling environment to uphold the rights of women in general.
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Sadrul Hasan Mazumder is a knowledge management and policy advocacy specialist.
