Harupur village in Rajshahi free from violence against women

Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB) yesterday declared Harupur village under Paba upazila in the district as a village free from violence against women.
On the occasion, FPAB organised a programme at Haripur Union Parishad office where Haripur UP Chairman Fazle Rabbi Al Manjil was present as the chief guest.
FPAB Rajshahi Chairman Abdur Rab Joarder said that FPAB first selected Harupur village for their target experiment and started their activities in 2005.
“When we started working here, we found a huge number of cases of women violence, including 333 incidents of physical and mental torture, 52 incidents of sexual harassment and 33 incidents of child marriage,” Joarder said.
“Later, we formed caretaker groups involving victims and started our counseling and awareness programme against women violence in the village,” he added.
Tasmira, a victim of child marriage, said that she returned to her village at the age of 12 as a victim of dowry.
“I got involved with an FPAB caretaker group and continued my study at Kashidanga Girls' High School,” she said.
“We, the victims of violence against women, and caretaker groups went door to door to create awareness against women violence and child marriage,” Nurjahan, another victim, said.
Haripur UP Chairman Fazle Rabbi Al Manjil also expressed his satisfaction over the FPAB activities and said that they will try to eliminate illiteracy from the village.
FPAB also presented a report that said around 92 percent villagers of Haripur are now aware of women violence and child marriage.
No woman was harassed and no girl was forced to marry in the last one year, they added.
FPAB District Officer Maizar Rahman, Haripur UP member Sufia Begum, Khairul Basher, Lal Muhammad, Kamruzzaman and caretaker group leader Tahmina Begum also spoke at the function.