Domestic violence against women in Bangladesh: discovering two sides of a coin

Abstract

Bangladesh has made significant stride as far as women empowerment is concerned reflected in various gender indicators. However, the country’s progress has seen less satisfactory in one particular area and that is domestic violence. Over the year it was expected that domestic violence against women would decline in line with our steady urbanisation, higher literacy rate and economic well-being, yet contradicting with all these assumptions, the degree of violence is still on the rise. Among other factors, the patriarchal social structure where women are not treated as equal to men followed by economic backwardness, patriarch psychological domination, cultural or religious dogma and superstitions are some of the major issues considered as the major contributory factors inducing violence against women at home. Also the lack of proper enforcement of the existing laws is believed to be another major reason behind this higher prevalence of domestic violence against women. Addressing remedies to this backdrop, this paper looks into two dimensions of domestic violence one from sociological perspectives, and another from governance perspectives where it has focused on existing legal and policy framework. The available literature is reviewed to depict a scenario, highlighting the cross country experience that concerns the major factors contributing in domestic violence. The paper also delineated some policy recommendation to end domestic violence in Bangladesh.