Sensitizing communities to eliminate discrimination and violence against women: an assessment of BRAC’s intervention

Abstract

The project titled ‘Sensitizing communities on CEDAW’ was a part of the Gender Quality Action Learning (GQAL) programme implemented in Gazipur to sensitize people about CEDAW to prevent violence against women and sexual harassment. The study aimed to assess the change of knowledge level of students and community leaders on CEDAW and sexual harassment. Two rounds of survey data – baseline and endline - were used to assess the change of the project. The difference in changing knowledge level of the respondents on CEDAW and sexual harassment between the baseline and endline survey was found to be much higher. Still there was considerable number of respondents whose knowledge was found to be unchanged or decreased after the intervention. Deeply rooted patriarchal ideology, cultural beliefs and practices were identified as the major reasons behind this fact. It was suggested that BRAC should run this kind of project in a larger scale, targeting larger groups of population for a longer period of time in order to eliminate dominant patriarchal ideology that keeps women subordinate and oppressed in all spheres of life.