Create awareness to stop violence against women

They urged the government, NGOs and mass media to play more active role in building the awareness.

The call was made at the second session of a two-day national conference on 'Institutional protection of human rights: Role of civil society, NGOs and media' in the city.

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The conference has been organised jointly by the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, UNDP and Australian High Commission in Dhaka.

The speakers said Lack of proper knowledge about law and religion, poor education and the absence of social awareness are mainly responsible for repression and exploitation of women in the society.

"Government, NGOs and other related organisations are not taking massive steps to eliminate violence against women although nobody denies that women and girl children are the most vulnerable group," said Shaheen Anam, team leader of Manusher Jonno, while moderating the conference at the plenary session on 'Human Rights Intervention-A Case for Dis-advantaged Groups/ People'.

She said women are the victims of sexual assault, rape, murder, acid-burn, fatwa, dowry, kidnapping, trafficking and other form of grievous tortures in the society.

"Government should take further initiatives to make ADR (Alternate Dispute Resolution) more popular and the authorities concerned should be trained and sensitised to reduce violence against women," said Advocate Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association (BNWLA), while presenting a keynote paper.

She pointed out that total number of violence against women this year stands at 5,207 which is almost double the number of previous year 2,511.

In another keynote paper, Mosharraf Hossain, country representative of Action on Disability and Development (ADD), highlighted the rights of disabled people including women and girl children.