Need to make our country safe for women

I was greatly dismayed to read about a college girl being severely burned after her stalkers set her on fire in her sleep at Chandipur. The name of the victim is Jolly and she is an undergraduate student of a degree college of Joypurhat. The news depicted a sad picture of reality about how our women are still living a life of insecurity.

Stalking and teasing women are very common incidents. Stalking and eve-teasing create negative impact on a girl's mental and physical upbringing. Our mindset must be changed so that girls can feel safe in society.

A research has shown that in our country 90 per cent women are victim of eve-teasing. Women frequently undergo vulgar comments, unnecessary touch, pushing and shoving on the streets and in public transports. Many women are quite often harassed at workplaces by male supervisors or colleagues.

Sometime stalking and teasing become extreme and we see incidents like a victim being physically attacked or killed. Such crime should be dealt with severely so that we do not see such incidents taking place.

Many times it is seen that powerful people are engaged in such activities and that time victims feel more helpless as they do not get proper help even from the law-enforcement agencies. It is high time we changed the existing social scenario which is women oppressing.

Asif Khaled

Sutrapur, Dhaka