Five Key Ways that BRAC Turns “Oppression into Opportunity” for Women, Part 1/5

"IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater."

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn,
The Women’s Crusade, The New York Times Magazine special issue dedicated to "Why Women’s Rights Are the Cause of Our Time." August 17, 2009

This blog post introduces a 5 part series, Five Ways that BRAC Turns “Oppression into Opportunity” for Women

#1 Confronting Violence Against Women

Male violence maims or kills more women ages 15-45 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.* Violence can take many forms. Sometimes groups of people get together and take the law into their own hands. Physical punishment is often the result. Read about BRAC’s victorious public interest lawsuit to prevent women from becoming victims of informal justice.

BRAC’s Human Rights and Legal Services (HRLS) in Bangladesh is dedicated to protecting and promoting human rights through legal aid, legal representation and empowerment. Examples of legal aid cases include: protecting victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence, such as acid throwing, and protecting a women’s rights during a divorce. BRAC also conducts workshops with poor and vulnerable women to raise awareness about gender issues, human rights, existing laws and the judicial system and making governmental courts accessible to individuals.

For example...

BRAC together with 5 other agencies recently filed a successful public interest case with the High Court of Bangladesh to force the Government to take action against extra-judicial adjudication of disputes, when the local community takes the law into their own hands, usually resulting in unjust corporal punishment for the victims. This type of “justice” is a growing problem.

In June, a woman in Srimongol was lashed 101 times for speaking to a man from a different community; a woman in Sirajgonj was caned 100 times and fined for daring to file a complaint of rape with the court; a woman was whipped in public in August after refusing a relative’s sexual advances.

On August 25, the court issued an interim order upon the Government and the law enforcing agencies to investigate promptly any report received of the issuance and imposition of an extra-judicial penalty, to take appropriate measures against any person found responsible, to provide security and protection to any victim. The Court order demanded that the Government put training and long term protection measures in place.

The Women’s Crusade, is an essay drawn from Kristof and WuDunn’s forthcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

* From Half the Sky, forthcoming book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn