Dhaka (AsiaNews)
- About 87 per cent of Bangladeshi married women are abused by their husband,
this according to a nation-wide study conducted by the government that involved
a sample of 12,600 women. Only 8 per cent of respondents said that they were
never abused by their partner.
Titled Violence against Women Survey 2011, the
research was conducted by the
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the United Nations
Population Fund. The picture it paints is alarming.
The survey found
that domestic violence is present in most Bangladeshi households. Last year, 77
per cent of respondents admitted that they had been abused. Of these, 50 per
cent had sustained serious injuries, but one in three women refused to go to
hospital for fear of retaliation by the husband. Although not as prevalent, the
problem also affects Catholic women.
Lata Gomes (not
her real name for security reasons) told AsiaNews
that "husbands consider us weak, and therefore believe that they have the
right to dominate us, even beating us. I am a university graduate and I take
care of our two children. But my husband does not listen to me, and if I do not
do what he says, he beats me."
Overall though, violence
is correlated to illiteracy and low levels of education among women, she explained.
According to human
rights organisation Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP), 5,616 cases of violence
against women were recorded in 2012, mostly rapes (904), followed by murders
(900), stalking and death as a result of stalking (662); dowry-related murders (558),
and suicide (435).