PARTNERSHIP FOR HEALTHY LIFE (PHL): VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (VAW) INITIATIVE

DINAJPUR DISTRICT, BANGLADESH

STRATEGIC IMPACT INQUIRY FOR CARE BANGLADESH

(PHOTOGRAPH OF WOMEN WITH MAP TO BE INSERTED)

Nazneen Kanji

31 March 2006

Contents

Acknowledgements

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Local terms

1. Introduction

1.1 Strategic Impact Inquiry (SII) framework

1.2 The Violence Against Women (VAW) initiative

2. Methodology for the SII

2.1 Location and focus

2.2 SII team and ways of working

2.3 Methods and tools

3. Impact Assessment: Key findings

3.1 Ishania Union: Context Analysis

3.2 Changing structures and relations: the Village Forums and Shalish

3.3 Changing attitudes and gender/social relations: Impacts of the project at village level

4. Conclusions and Key Lessons

4.1 Conclusions and lessons

4.2 Lessons for other VAW initiatives (and mainstreaming within CARE programmes)

Acknowledgements

This report is a result of team work with CARE staff. I would like to thank Brigitta Bode, Anowarul Haq, Muhsin Siddiquey, Mawa, all the SDU project staff and field facilitators, field facilitators from the VAW initiative and staff from the Rural Livelihoods Programme for all their hard work on this SII. I am also grateful for comments from Brigitta and the SDU team, and Muhsin and Mawa, on a preliminary version of this report. Finally, thanks to Kamil Kanji for editing the 10 individual case studies contained in Annex 2.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ALAwami League

BLASTBangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust

BRACBangladesh Rural Advancement Committee

BNPBangladesh Nationalist Party

CDACommunity Development Association

PHLPartnership for a Healthy Life

RDRSRangpur Dinajpur Rural Services

SDUSocial Development Unit, CARE

SIIStrategic Impact Inquiry

UPUnion Parishad

VAWViolence Against Women

VF Village Forum

WHOWorld Health Organization

Local terms

GustiKin (lineage-based) group

ImamReligious (mosque) leader

JotdarRich peasant and money lender class

MaharanaPayment apart from dowry, for wife in case her husband dies, divorces or leaves her.

MohotHindu local leaders (who deal with gusti relations/ issues)

ParaNeighborhood of village

Shalish‘Traditional’ arbitration mechanism for dispute settlement, usually convened by local male elites

ShalishkarArbitrator

TebaghaPre-independence movement of share-croppers to defend their interests (coordinated by the Communist Party)

Union ParishadGoverning body at union level (lowest administrative unit of government)

UpazillaSub-district

1. Introduction

1.1 Strategic Impact Inquiry (SII) Framework

CARE International is carrying out an SII to understand better the contribution of its programmes to women’s empowerment and gender equity. Various country offices, including Bangladesh, are contributing to this global initiative which is coordinated by CARE’s Impact Measurement and Learning Team in Atlanta. This report presents the findings of an SII carried out on a project to address gender-based violence in north-west Bangladesh. It builds in particular on a literature review and interviews with CARE staff carried out by Mick Howes (2005), on a recent assessment of VAW initiatives carried out by Victor Robinson (December, 2005) and on research carried out by this consultant and CARE’s Social Development Unit (SDU), which explored perceptions of empowerment and women’s own strategies to further their interests in the context of their daily lives (Kanji et al, 2005).

CARE’s SII is using a framework based on Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration which has been operationalised by Martinez (2005), Bode (2005) and Howes (2005). Essentially, the SII seeks to explore how CARE’s programmes:

  1. contribute to women’s agency
  2. facilitate a process through which women engage in social relations with other actors to fulfil their needs and finally,
  3. contribute to the transformation of social structures (cultural constructs, local level institutions, legal and policy frameworks) that institutionalise women’s marginalization.

Agency, social relations and structures are key concepts used in the SII. An exploration of their interaction in particular contexts is expected to generate a deeper understanding of the factors which contribute to women’s empowerment, and to allow for clearer strategies to be developed in CARE programming.

1.2 The Violence Against Women (VAW) initiative

Background

The constitution of Bangladesh recognizes that women have equal rights with men in all spheres of the state and public life. The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was ratified by Bangladesh in 1984 and the government adopted a National Policy for the Advancement of Women (NPAW) in 1997 to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women by empowering women as equal partners in development. This policy identified actions against violence as a priority area for government interventions. However, significant changes were made to the policy in 2004, which now excludes key statements related to women’s property rights, inheritance rights and political empowerment. The national policy environment is therefore less favourable than in the recent past, with extremist groups interpreting Islam in conservative ways in relation to women’s rights and status in society.

The Dinajpur Safe Mother Initiative (DSI – from which the Dinajpur VAW initiative originated), in its Detailed Implementation Report (October 2002), cited a sampling of statistics on violence against women[1]:

  • In 1999, studies estimated that between 47% and 60% of Bangladeshi married women were victims of wife beating
  • In 1998, a study indicates that 14% of all maternal deaths in Bangladesh are attributed to physical and emotional violence including homicide and suicide.
  • In 1992, twice as many women died from violence compared to all the women who died from tuberculosis, leprosy, skin disease, tumour and cancer combined.

Various problem analyses and research into violence against women were carried out by CARE, which inform this initiative (Blanchet, 2001; Nazneen, 2004; Robinson, 2004). Robinson (2005) succinctly lays out the situation in rural Bangladesh:

“Violence against women is considered a normal part of life by a significant number of both men and women. It is considered a personal and private affair to be handled within the family or local context. The legal system is distrusted and widely perceived (including by representatives of the legal profession) as unlikely to provide unbiased justice in cases of violence against women. Related factors such as dowry and child marriage are illegal but almost universally practiced. Many villagers willingly express unhappiness with the situation (particularly with respect to dowry) but see no socially viable alternatives.”

In an earlier study, where I worked with SDU, in Jalagari village, Gaibanda district, 12 women from poorer households were brought together to discuss issues of gender-based violence, through role play directed and acted by the women. Unpaid dowry was a key issue that triggered violence and women stated that there has been an increase in violence due to the increase in the amounts involved in dowry, which particularly affects women from poor households. They felt that although violence did occur “behind closed doors” in better-off households (and we know that gender-based violence cuts across class in most contexts), the triggers tended to be different in middle-income households: issues of land and property, as well as the higher unmet expectations that women had of being provided for by their husbands. The women also felt that younger women tended to suffer more violence than older ones, because older women who stayed with their husbands had developed defensive coping strategies, which usually involved curbing their reactions and placating husbands. The role of the husbands’ family members seemed to vary, from actively encouraging or participating in the violence to trying to curb severe violence. The role of local leaders also tended to vary, but less severe violence is widely condoned and seen as part of a “natural” order of men having the right to discipline their wives.

In summary, the project operates in a difficult political and social context in which to reduce gender-based violence and promote women’s empowerment. In addition, the issue of violence against women is universally one of the most sensitive gender issues to address. These factors are important to bear in mind in reading this report, which assesses programme impacts. It is also important to note that the project has operated with limited financial and human resources.

Project objectives

The goal of the VAW initiative is to ensure the realization of women’s dignity and rights to freedom from gender-based violence by strengthening civil society and empowering communities, by building their capacity, making allies with stakeholders and advocating for women’s rights at all levels of intervention in Dinajpur.

The specific objectives are:

  • To mobilize communities through empowerment and mediation at the village level;
  • To establish and enforce village level support mechanisms;
  • To coordinate, provide leadership and support through Union Parishads (UPs) at union level;
  • To generate a coordinated community response through government systems consisting of quality services (including health, psycho-social counselling, legal, law-enforcement) at sub-district level;
  • To create an enabling environment through policy enforcement at the regional level.

Project activities

The steps in the process to develop project activities are summarised by Mick Howes (2005), on the basis of relevant documents and consultations with project staff. These are presented below, with some updating on the basis of a recent project progress report and information from project staff with whom we worked on the SII.

Community diagnosis

Activities got underway in January 2003 with a three-month community diagnosis exercise that was mainly carried out by the field trainers. Contact was made with members of the local elite, including Union Parishad members, teachers and religious leaders; together with younger people and poorer members of the population. A range of methods - including social mapping, focus group discussions and individual case studies with the victims of violence - were used to build up a picture of the local situation and to see how far this corresponded to the picture arising from the research studies that had been carried out. The exercise also provided an opportunity to start identifying individuals who might potentially play a part when the main work began.

The community diagnosis was carried out within the PHL project and could not be analyzed as it was not documented. However, with hindsight from the SII, it would appear that there was insufficient attention to the material and social relations between elites (at different levels-para, village and union) and disadvantaged groups. In other words, more attention should have been paid to the way in which class and religion interact with gender relations, since these power dynamics influence representation on committees, on shalish and on the positions and decisions taken.

Activating the Upazila VAW coordination committee

During this preliminary period, the previously inactive Upazilla VAW coordination committee was encouraged to convene to assist the planned programme of activities. The committee draws together officials from different agencies under the government women’s affairs officer and is charged with providing support and leadership in changing norms, implementing activities and addressing the needs of victims. This body now meets every two to three months. Efforts to network and extend the scope for advocacy at district and national level were also initiated at around this time.

Building rapport

Following the initial exchanges taking place during the community diagnosis, more focused attempts were made to engage leading local actors in a dialogue about VAW during which they were asked to reflect on the need of their own women relatives to be protected from violence. The intention was both to start changing the attitudes of the individuals in question whilst more generally creating an enabling atmosphere in which the relevant issues could begin to be discussed more openly.

The support of the Nirbahi Officer (senior officer at the Upazilla) and UP Chairman then sought to organize day-long advocacy and coalition building workshops at Upazilla and Union levels. These events drew between 80 and 100 people including local officials, elected representatives, religious and other leaders, NGO and CBO representatives, lawyers, journalists, youth and adolescent representatives, and a cross-section of the population as a whole. Men and women were represented in roughly equal numbers. In the earlier part of the meetings, women’s rights, violence against women and its consequences and the causes of gender-based violence were explored. In the later stages, the overall shape of the program was discussed and the roles and responsibilities of different parties broadly clarified and agreed.

Establishing Village Forums

Attention now switched to the individual villages, where informal individual and small group discussions were initiated to talk about the union workshops, to begin to raise the consequences of VAW, to explore the wider social and cultural issues arising, to identify and begin to mobilize potential leaders and generally to build a more detailed picture of local conditions. These contacts, in turn, were to pave the way for a series of larger village meetings, where case studies and other data about VAW were presented, and the idea for a new type of forum - to be organized at village rather than ward level - was promoted. The meetings would typically be attended by between 50 and 60 people and last for about two hours.

With the ground thus prepared, the forums were established. In each instance,10-15 representatives from different social groups were selected. (Representation issues will be discussed later in the report). Responsibilities included collecting information about VAW, raising awareness, liaising with shalish, referring cases to services, and organizing protests and resistance as the need arose. The local women UP representatives were asked to provide leadership and to promote the initiative in the UP itself and in the local shalish in the wards falling under their jurisdiction. Ultimately, about 40 forums were established; 20 in Ishania Union itself, where there was one for almost every village, and a further 20 in Birampur.

Shortly after the individual bodies had been set up, a field trainer and a training officer would spend a day with the committees developing specific terms of reference and discussing how responsibilities should be allocated between members. Further support would then be supplied from time to time as required. Forums would meet each month, usually sitting for between one and two hours, according to how much there was to discuss. About two thirds of the members were said to attend on any particular occasion. However, over time the functioning of the VFs have varied a lot.

Organising drama and folk song

The next step was to work with youth groups to develop dramas that could be used to disseminate VAW messages. Two boys groups have been formed. They have between 10 and 15 members, who range in age from 13 to 21 and are mainly secondary school or college graduates. CARE provided them with help to develop suitable scripts. About 10 performances have so far been given at village meetings organized under the auspices of the forum, with the drama being used to stimulate discussion.

Arrangements have been made (through a local NGO) with a professional folk song group to give regular performances propagating VAW messages, for which they are provided with expenses and a small payment.

Special interest groups

At the same time, special interest groups including teachers, religious leaders, shalish, UP women members, youth, and adolescents have been convened across the different villages of the Union and encouraged to meet from time to time to see what measures might be taken to further the anti-VAW initiative within their own spheres of activity.

Training for local adjudicators

Parallel to the activities described above, an initiative was set in motion to train members of village shalish. This was developed with the assistance of Ain-o-Shalish Kendro (ASK), a human rights and legal aid organization with many years of experience of running training courses, which have adapted their usual curriculum to take into account the specific nature of the initiative. One hundred and eighty adjudicators (shaliskars), split into six different batches, have been trained in gender, women’s rights, and mediation from a gender perspective, para legal issues and ethics in arbitration. Each session costs 25,000 taka and lasts for four days. Four or five representatives come together from each village, and all of the shalish from Ishania and one other union have now been covered. Alongside the training, attempts have been made to get UP women representatives and other relatively more empowered women included in shalish, and to try to get shalish to give more emphasis to VAW.

The forums monitor shalish proceedings, and where cases cannot be resolved, arrange for them to be referred upwards to the UP. With CARE’s support, forums have also started to keep records and to document individual cases.