Women repression prevention programme to continue

Even after the project term ends, an initiative is being taken to continue the activities of the project, ‘Multi-Sectoral Programme on Violence against Women’.

There is consideration to include the activities deemed necessary, in the current revenue programme. The 22-year-old project of the women and children affairs ministry is about to end this December.

Activities including treatment of women and children subjected to physical and sexual abuse, their rehabilitation, DNA tests, police and legal assistance, mental health advice or counseling service, complaint submission through the helpline number, creating public awareness against repression, are run under this project.

The project is now running in its fourth phase. The total budget allocation in this phase is around Tk 1.32 billion (1,319,359,000). Since 2000, the project had been operating under the joint venture of Bangladesh and Denmark’s government agency, Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).

DANIDA moved away from the project after June last year. The government reduced the expenditure on that project after that. Plus, the project was moved down from ‘flagship’ (highly important) to ‘B’ category in July of the current fiscal year.

The project period for the fourth phase of this project was stretched from 2016 to June, 2021. Later it was extended till June and then December of 2022.

When asked, project director Nahid Monjura Afroz told Prothom Alo that the project period will be ending in December this year. But an initiative is being taken to keep the activities running. The inter-ministerial committee has been working on it.

The ministry of women and children affairs formed a five-member committee on last 20 March to determine the way ahead to keep the activities running even after the project period runs out. Director of the women affairs department, an agency of the women and children affairs ministry, has been made the convener of the committee.

The project director is becoming the member secretary. Three of the members are the additional secretary (administration) and joint secretary (planning and statistics) and deputy secretary (development-2) of the ministry.

That committee held a meeting in March. Several officials from the ministry as well as the department has said that either it will be decided to run it under the revenue sector by including various activities of the project in the revenue programme or to keep the activities running by taking newer projects.

The chances of taking up newer projects are low though. And even if the activities are included in the revenue programme not many people will be employed there.

There are OCC’s in 14 medical college hospitals, 67 one-stop crisis cells in district Sadar hospitals and upazila health complexes, national forensic DNA profiling laboratory, eight divisional DNA screening laboratories, national trauma counseling centre, eight regional trauma counseling centres running under the project.

In addition to that there’s also national helpline centre 109 in preventing violence against women and children, mobile app ‘Joy’, special activities for Rohingya women and children and public awareness campaigns to prevent repression.

In the meantime, a notice was issued in 2020 for establishing a DNA laboratory management department. As a result, DNA test related activities will be run under the revenue sector.

However, there arose uncertainties about whether the remaining activities will continue or be stopped once the project period has ended. As there is no decision on extending the project period any longer, more than 250 officers and employees of the project are worried about losing their jobs.

Following the women and children affairs ministry’s proposal of creating 510 posts to run the activities, the public administration ministry last year gave approval for only 23 posts.

Later the ministry of women and children affairs proposed to appoint 252 people directly along with 161 people through outsourcing. No decision has been made on the new proposal yet. Due to the financial crisis, the government isn’t interested in running the activities by creating large-scale workforce at the moment, said several officials.

Joint secretary (planning and statistics division) of the women and children affairs ministry, Nargis Khanam, told Prothom Alo on 26 April that several alternatives are being considered.

Deputy secretary (development-2) of the women and child affairs ministry Jagadish Chandra Debnath said that the activities are quite essential and beneficial for the state. So, the government will work in such a way that the activities can be continued.

Meanwhile, a member of Satkhira district anti-corruption committee Sakibur Rahman believes that the project will require more attention if renewed.