Tareen Rahman :
Advocate Sultana Kamal, Executive Director of Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK),said that violence against women was on increase due to loopholes in law, apathy of the law enforcers to apply law, decaying of ethics and morality.
This was disclosed by Advocate Kamal in an interview with the New Nation in her office in Lalmatia recently.
ASK Executive Director, who works also as a Human Rights Activist said, ‘ Violence against women is spreading in our country despite existing laws against it. Violence does not include only physical and sexual assault only, but also psychological and emotional pressure,said Executive Director of Ain-o-Salish Kendra (ASK) and Human Rights activist, Advocate Sultana Kamal, in a recent interview with the New Nation.’
Human Rights Activist, Sultana said that their organization Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), which is a national legal aid and human rights organization provides legal and social support to the disempowered of the society, particularly women and children.’
ASK has the goal to create a society based on equality, social and gender justice, to implement the rule of law, to create an environment for accountability and transparency of governance institutions.
Condemning the violence against women at Pohela Baishakh, Sultana Kamal said, ‘ The laws to protect the women of our country are still weak .The process of implementation seems a long way because women are afraid of speaking against their male perpetrators for fear of further violence and harassment.’
Sultana Kamal mentioned of the worthy actions that had been taken by the government to protect women’s legal rights and improve the social status of women in our country.The Dowry Prohibition Act,1980 which forbids any one from giving or receiving dowry and The Nari O Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain, 2000 (Law on the Suppression of Violence against Women and Children,2000), which for the first time expanded the definition of rape considerably and sexual assault and sexual harassment have been made punishable offences.
Acid Crime Prevention Act, 2000 and Acid control Act, 2000 is also a appreciable act enacted by the government to protect our women from being victims of such heinous incidents. Other laws for protecting women folk are the Family Violence Prevention and Protection Act, 2010 and National Women policy, 2011.
Sultana Kamal commented that ‘One Stop Crisis Centers’ are operating at regional level for women victims of violence so that they can receive medical treatment, police assistance, legal support and rehabilitation services. She applauded the government for establishing the National Trauma Counseling Center as in her opinion this is a very positive move for our country.
Sultana Kamal said , although awareness raising programs and advocacy are being conducted with specific focus on engaging males in prevention of violence against women and changing stereotype mind set in the society, still the scenario is not changing much.
Speaking on the issue of other types of abuse and violence against women in our country, she said, the perpetrators are very clever. Failing to commit direct violence against the weaker gender, male dominant partners are now more involved in engineering psychological and emotional violence to the females in the household and towards their female colleagues at work places as there is no law to protect this type of action or to shelter our women folk.
ASK has urged the government many times to enact laws against psychological and emotional violence against women, yet no effort has been taken in this direction .
She said, ‘More reports reach us every day about this kind of violence, specially in the educated and middle class households and we feel helpless as we have no legal ways of helping these women’.
