Addressing domestic violence against women

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Baby Vandir
Manjila Begum hardly passes a day when her husband does not torture her. Manjila's husband is unhappy as she gave birth to three daughters in a row.
Manjila, now in her mid-30s, married a fellow-villager, Hasan, of Gayghar village in Shariatpur district, 15 years ago. Now they have got three daughters. Hasan is frustrated. He blames Manjila for not having a son in the last 17 years of their marriage. So, he tortures her everyday.
"Despite all this, I'm still with him because women in this society are born to live with bad husbands," she says.
It is unfortunate that women in Bangladesh are wrongly blamed for giving birth to daughters. Most Bangladeshis are not aware of the science of birth. According to science, a man's sperm -- not female eggs -- is responsible for natural choosing of the gender of a baby.
Man's sex chromosomes are X and Y while woman's sex chromosomes are X and X. The infant will be a son if the husband's Y chromosome meets wife's X chromosome. But the infant will be a daughter if the husband's X chromosome meets the wife's X chromosome. So, a husband determines the child's sex.
Another housewife, Banesha Begum, 30, is also tortured by her in-laws. Banesha of Sadar upazila in Natore district was married off with Moslem Uddin of Baraigram upazila in the district. Her poor father had paid Moslem a huge amount in dowry during the marriage. But, he wants more.
After the marriage, Moslem asked Banesha to bring more money from her father if he wants to live with him. Her poor father, Badsha Miah, borrowed Tk 15,000 from his neighbours and relatives and gave it to Moslem. He did it all for his daughter so that her husband stop torturing her. But that is not to be.
Moslem, a greedy man, gradually increased the intensity of torture on Banesha. One day, Moslem's family members poured kerosene over Banesha's body and set her on fire, leaving her critically injured.
She was treated in a local hospital for long, but did not recover fully.
Like Manjila and Banesha, thousands of Bangladeshi women are victims of violence in their own families. "Women are tortured in many tactful ways and most incidents go unnoticed. Many repressed women feel that what happens in a family should not be made public," says Coordinator of Family Repression Prevention Alliance (Jote) MB Akhter.
Akhter says any case of repression needs to be discussed with people outside the family. Ninety percent women expect the nobility of manner from their family members -- husband and in-laws.
Experts say there is a deep relation between family violence and maternal and infant mortality rates because rights to reproductive health of women are violated due to family violence.
A UN report on Gender says family repression causes around 14 percent maternal deaths in Bangladesh because of its negative impact on physical and mental healthiness of women.
According to the documentation unit of Ain O Salish Kendra, 331 incidents of family repression took place in the country in 2003 while 237 women were killed either by their husbands or in-laws.
The UN Declaration on Elimination of Repression on Women (1993) says all harmful acts against women, including exploitation or discriminatory behaviour by their husbands or other family members, physical torture, sexual repression on female children, torture for dowry, post-marriage rape and damaging any organ of the wife, are regarded as family violence.
2 (A) section of the Declaration says women have rights to live in the family without being victims of physical, mental and psychological tortures.
"Normally, repression means physical assault on people in our country and women repression means physical assault and torture on women. But women can be repressed in many ways such as mentally, physically, economically or sexually," says Ranjan Karmaker, Executive Director of Gender and Development Communications and STEPS Towards Development.
Karmaker continues: Chauvinism is the main reason behind the family violence. Our family structure also has contribution to the growing violence. Usually, there are many restrictions on movement of girls but there is no restriction on that of boys.
"The effect of family violence passes onto the next generation and this hinders smooth grooming of children. One kind of fear develops among girls in their childhood when they see their mothers being repressed by their fathers or other family members. The same happens to male children and they ultimately prepare themselves as their fathers," he says.
Sultana Kamal of Ain O Salish Kendra says there is no law in the country to prevent family violence although Nepal and Malaysia have already done this to ensure women's security in the family.
She says various women organisations carried out movements on various occasions in the past demanding that a law to check family violence be enacted. Even, Ain O Salish Kendra has formulated a draft and discussed the issue with the Law Commission.
She, however, regrets that the government has not yet done anything concrete to check family violence. The government will have to come forward to formulate a law in this connection and enforce it properly.
"First of all, we have to change our attitude towards women. Men must not treat women as only women, but as human being. They (men) also have to show respect to the opinions of women and allow them to make decisions because that is their rights," says Karmoker.

— News Network