Sirajganj's Husne Ara Jolly married at an early age. She has been subjected to violence throughout her married life, and at one point, she attempted to take her own life.
However, considering the future of her children, she left her husband and started working for the good of survivors of domestic violence like herself.
It was difficult to work alone, so she decided to form an organisation called Programme for Women Development with like-minded women in 1999. They registered it with Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.
Initially, she developed a good relationship with union parishads, community leaders, journalists, police station, court, hospital and other service providers and with their help, she started working on preventing all forms of violence against women and girls and empowering them.
"At one point I was engaged with Manusher Jonno Foundation. Afterwards I formed different groups in the grassroots level consisting of women, men, adolescents, and youth, gave them the training to prevent all sorts of gender-based violence. In the last one year, we have stopped 123 weddings and prevented 775 marriages from happening, trained 169 female arbitrators, who are taking part in different village arbitrations," shared Husne Ara, at a webinar yesterday.
The webinar titled "Grassroots Response to Address Violence against Women and Girls" was organized by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF).
A number of girls from different areas of the country also shared how they were able to prevent being married off by availing the help of the grassroots organisations and local union parishad.
According to a telephone survey conducted in MJF's working areas, from April to September this year, a total of 37,912 women faced domestic violence and of them, 16, 485 faced violence for the first time in their life.
The survey also found around 935 girls became the victims of child marriage. However, the partner organisations of MJF were able to stop 713 child marriages in their areas.
MJF executive director Shaheen Anam moderated the event and she said while there is a rise in gender-based violence across the country, there are also social movements along with civil society and government response at the grassroots level to prevent it.
"We need a concerted effort, coordination and collaboration among all different stakeholders to stop violence against women and girls. Concerned institutions in healthcare, policing and judiciary etc have to perform their responsibilities with honesty and accountability," she said.
"Most importantly a change in attitude is necessary both at the family and societal levels. Women and girls' contributions must be recognised, and finally, the state has to take special measures to enact laws that will enable the prevention of gender-based violence," she added.
Judith Herbertson, development director, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Bangladesh, British High Commission said, "We recognise violence against women and girls as another sort of global pandemic, rooted in unequal power dynamics between women and men; and reinforced by harmful social norms and inequality under the law."
National Human Rights Commission Chairperson Nasima Begum in her speech as chief guest said service provider organisations should come forward to prevent the increasing incidents of violence against women and girls.
She also urged women and girls to remain strong and empowered, and called upon all sectors to be vocal in preventing child marriage.
Sahely Ferdous, assistant inspector general of police and Dr Abul Hossain, project director, Multi-Sectoral programme for Violence against Women, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs also spoke at the webinar.
The webinar also recommended that quick measures should be taken so that "virtual court ordinances" can function in emergencies without any hindrance and there must be massive awareness campaigns to stop rape, child marriage and domestic violence.
