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Monitor Initiatives Needed for Curbing Violence Against Women: GBV Experts

Experts at a roundtable discussion titled “Are Existing Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Indicators Sufficient?” on October 25 at The Business Standard office stated that pinpointing the root causes of violence against women and assessing the success of preventative measures are crucial to achieving the SDG target of ending such incidents by 2030. The roundtable was organized by the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Founder and executive chairman of PPRC, Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman stated, “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 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,”

M Shahidul Islam, chief of population planning and research at UNFPA Bangladesh 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.”

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.

Experts who were present at the roundtable have proposed some 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, then from whom
  • Survey if women have power to make decisions about children’s education

The roundtable was moderated by Inam Ahmed, editor of The Business Standard. Among others who were present at the roundtable: Farah Kabir, country director of ActionAid Bangladesh; Sara Hossain, honorary executive director of BLAST; Nobonita Chowdhury, head of Gender Justice and Diversity at BRAC; Mainul Islam, professor at the Population Science Department at Dhaka University.

Source: The Business Standard 

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