Seven out of ten ever-married women in Bangladesh experience some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
Gender-based violence is a phenomenon deeply rooted in gender inequality and continues to be one of the most notable human rights violations within all societies. Patriarchy and structural factors at multiple levels within our societies, prevent women and girls from gaining access to equal opportunities and realising their dreams. Both women and men experience gender-based violence but the majority of victims are women and girls. Working with men and boys is part of the solution to bring about gender transformative change in our society.
BRAC’s integrated gender transformative approach strengthens the voice, choice and space for women and girls to combat violence and eliminate all forms of gender discrimination with the active engagement of men and boys. BRAC works for transforming socio-cultural gender norms; building capacity of staff and stakeholders; creating a supportive working environment; advocating for gender equality and gender justice at all level through gender mainstreaming.
IMPACT

1.845 million people reached through awareness efforts on violence against women, children and prevention of child marriage across 7 districts in 2018.

91,286 adolescent girls reached through awareness efforts on health, nutrition, reproductive and sexual health issues across 94 Upazilas in 2018.

23,019 pre-primary and primary students, across 914 schools, orientated on good touch/bad touch (child sexual abuse) in 2018.
WHAT WE DO

End violence against women and children
Work with sectoral programmes (like health, education, microfinance, skills) and enterprises (BRAC Dairy and Food Product, Aarong, Ayesha Abed Foundation) in addressing gender based violence and influence policies for social change

Challenge discriminatory social norms
Engage with men and boys to reduce violence against women, to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality

Increase women’s participation in paid work and public domain
Reduce and prevent violence and sexual harassment in workplaces and public spheres

Ensure workplace safety and equality
Establish a conducive legal and regulatory environment to promote women’s active participation
HOW WE DO IT

Gender mainstreaming within BRAC
Ensure a strong gender perspective at every stage of the programme life cycle; initiate action learning projects that address gender issues that can be upscaled and replicated.

Strengthen organisational systems and culture
Provide tailor-made gender training to staff; strengthen gender-responsive organisational policies, procedures and systems; , facilitate implementation of Sexual Harassment Elimination Policy; promote women’s leadership and ensure gender responsive field offices.

Monitoring systems and knowledge management
Work to establish gender responsive robust monitoring system and knowledge management for capturing results and lessons learned for wider dissemination for programmatic change

Policy advocacy and partnership
Influence gender-related policies through regular, collaborative initiatives with government, non-government organisations, networks and alliances.

Gender-responsive learning material
Develop gender responsive human centered learning materials for promoting gender equality within BRAC and programme outreach.

Innovation
Pilot innovative initiatives for testing gender transformative approaches and addressing emerging pertinent issues in nontraditional sectors
WHY IT WORKS

Global and national priorities
Setting our sights on change everywhere and aligning our work with international efforts and the SDGs Goal 5. Focus on current gender equality issues that affecting girls, boys, women, men and their intersections

Using gender equality to achieve targets towards a broader goal
Using gender transformational approaches to address structural issues in order to reach BRAC’s 5th strategic priorities

Prioritising women leadership
Ensuring equal opportunities for women at all levels across the organisation and promoting women’s leadership through different foras and platforms

Social transformation
Targeting underlying causes of gender inequalities at the family, community and national level

Creating ambassadors
Creating change agents among women and men, girls and boys to transform society