On the occasion of International Women’s Day, in Bangladesh, through different actions we demanded an investment in gender equality policies in order to reverse the existing shortfall by 2030.

International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 8, 2024 in the Satkhira district by the communities with which we work in Bangladesh.

The day began with some activities in which the representative of the Parliament, Laila Parvin Shejuti participated. It followed by the colourful demonstration on the road by 600 people, including lot of teenagers and women, to demand women’s rights.

After the demonstration, debates were organized at different locations, in which the main topics were equal opportunities, equal participation of men and women in development processes and other key issues such as child marriages and sexist violence.

One of the highlighted topics of these debates was the need to continue working on preventive measures so that the parents from the most vulnerable communities know about the dangers of child marriage. They also discussed about the importance of an education to avoid sexist violence and creating awareness about the existing resources for the victims.

Amongst other key areas, they discussed about the Access to education and literacy for girls and the need to create employment for women.

In 2023, in this Bengali district of Satkhira which shares the border with India, we started promoting the training about the risks of falling into trafficking networks, which is fundamentally associated with irregular migration for economic reasons to the people from rural communities. We have worked to create networks with public and private entities and organizations to facilitate access to local employment opportunities for young adolescents in the region. During this year we ensured that 1,287 people from the rural communities of the district had access to awareness-raising sessions which was based on the risks of human trafficking and also identified that 96 people were at risk of trafficking while there were survivors of trafficking who have accessed information on jobs and financial securities.

In 2024 we will keep working along this same line.