WUNRN
UN
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences
Finalises Country Mission to Bangladesh
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http://www.irinnews.org/report/98697/bangladeshi-slum-dwellers-face-higher-risk-of-domestic-violence
BANGLADESH - SLUM DWELLER WOMEN FACE
HIGHER RISK OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Shopna Begum, 35, in
DHAKA, 5 September 2013 (IRIN) - Women living in the slums
in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital of 15 million people, face a higher risk of
domestic violence than women in other parts of the country, say researchers.
Nationwide, recordkeeping and data collection on the extent and types of
violence against women are still scarce, according to an expert panel in 2011 monitoring the country’s progress on
eliminating violence against women. But the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence
against Women, Rashida Manjoo, found ample evidence in a recent visit to
Bangladesh that “discrimination and violence against women continues in law and
practice”.
The situation is even worse in the capital’s sprawling slums, Ruchira Tabassum
Naved, a researcher with the Centre for Equity and Health Systems at the
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b),
told IRIN.
In a 2012 survey of almost 4,500 women and some 1,600 men living
in 19 of the capital’s slums, conducted by icddr,b and the international NGO Population
Council, 85 percent of the women reported their husbands restricted their
access to healthcare, while 21 percent reported being physically abused by
their husbands during pregnancy. Nearly one out of four women reported
suffering injuries from spouse-inflicted violence in the year before the survey
was conducted.
“Our studies suggest that education, household wealth, attitudes regarding
gender and violence against women are important factors associated with this
violence. Unfortunately, the slum population has lower education and wealth and
higher violence, [as well as]… traditional [attitudes] about gender [that condone
violence],” Naved, a co-researcher for the report, told IRIN.
Researchers estimate 3.4 million people live in Dhaka’s 5,000 slum areas.
Nationally, an estimated seven million people live in informal settlements,
according to the Centre for Urban Studies, a local research group.
Economics of violence
Shamsun Nahar, 20, thought when she married Abdus Salam, 25, a rickshaw puller,
her suffering would end.
Coming from one of the country’s poorest districts, Bhola District in the
southwest, she had long struggled with poverty. She stopped going school after
grade eight when the family could no longer support her and her sisters’
expenses.
But in her husband’s house, in a slum in a sub-district of Dhaka, Mirpur, some
100km north of her childhood home, she faced something worse than just poverty:
Her husband beat her almost daily, mostly over how she carried out housework.
In 2012, with the help of a local NGO, she left him and moved to a neighbouring
slum. She now works in a garment factory where she earns US$55 monthly on
average. Though she knows the notorious reputation of Bangladesh’s garment
industry, including the long hours and building safety concerns, she said this risk feels safer
than her previous life.
“I thought I would never escape the torture. I could not go to my parents’
house as they were not able to bear my expenses and I could no [longer]
endure,” she said.
Ishrat Shamim, president of the local research NGO Centre for Women and
Children Studies, said poverty increases a woman’s vulnerability to violence.
“I am not saying that domestic violence does not take place among the high
income group. But when a woman has a source of income, she can protest undue
treatment from her husband… In many cases a wife does not complain as she fears
she will lose her shelter,” Ishrat said.
Legislation reformed, but few changes
Though adopted in 2010, the “Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act” remains
unenforced, mainly due to lack of awareness and women’s fear of reporting, said
Ishrat.
“There should be adequate shelter facilities so that women get shelter after
complaining about their husbands,” she added.
State Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs Meher Afroz Chumki, speaking
earlier this week at a workshop on preventing child marriage, said the
government is working to end gender violence and to implement laws related to
women’s protection.
The country adopted in 1997 a national policy for the advancement of women,
aimed at eradicating gender disparities. The country’s “Vision 2021” programme
aims to “revive” the 1997 policy. In 2009, the government established the
National Council for Women and Child Development, headed by the prime minister,
and “gender-responsive
budgeting” for 2009-2011 in 10 of the country’s 40 ministries.
In addition to the 2010 law on domestic violence, sections of the following
laws mention women’s protection: the Bangladesh Labour Act (2006); the
Representation of People’s (Amendment) Ordinance (2008); the Citizenship
(Amendment) Act (2009); the Right to Information Act (2009); and the National
Human Rights Act (2009).
But these legislative reforms are still largely unhelpful for women, noted UN
Special Rapporteur Manjoo, reflecting on her recent visit: “The absence of effective
implementation of existing laws was the rule rather than the exception in cases
of violence against women.”
Manjoo has called on Dhaka to take more steps to comply with the Convention to
Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which the country
ratified in 1984.