Battered bodies & shattered minds: violence against women in Bangladesh.

Violence against women is a common and insidious phenomenon in Bangladesh. The types of violence commonly committed are domestic violence, acid throwing, rape, trafficking and forced prostitution. Domestic violence is the most common form of violence and its prevalence is higher in rural areas. A higher prevalence of verbal abuse than physical abuse by partners has been observed. The reasons mentioned for abuse were trivial and included questioning of the husband, failure to perform household work and care of children, economic problems, stealing, refusal to bring dowry, etc. The factors associated with violence were the age of women, age of husband, past exposure to familial violence, and lack of spousal communication. The majority of abused women remained silent about their experience because of the high acceptance of violence within society, fear of repercussion, tarnishing family honour and own reputation, jeopardizing children's future, and lack of an alternative place to stay. However, severely abused women, women who had frequent verbal disputes, higher level of education, and support from natal homes were more likely to disclose violence. A very small proportion of women approached institutional sources for help and only when the abuse was severe, became life threatening or children were at risk. Interestingly, violence increased with membership of women in micro-credit organizations initially but tapered off as duration of involvement increased. The high acceptability of violence within society acts as a deterrent for legal redress. Effective strategies for the prevention of violence should involve public awareness campaigns and community-based networks to support victims.

A multidimensional approach to measure poverty in rural Bangladesh.

Poverty is increasingly being understood as a multidimensional phenomenon. Other than income-consumption, which has been extensively studied in the past, health, education, shelter, and social involvement are among the most important dimensions of poverty. The present study attempts to develop a simple tool to measure poverty in its multidimensionality where it views poverty as an inadequate fulfillment of basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, health, education, and social involvement. The scale score ranges between 72 and 24 and is constructed in such a way that the score increases with increasing level of poverty. Using various techniques, the study evaluates the poverty-measurement tool and provides evidence for its reliability and validity by administering it in various areas of rural Bangladesh. The reliability coefficients, such as test-retest coefficient (0.85) and Cronbach's alpha (0.80) of the tool, were satisfactorily high. Based on the socioeconomic status defined by the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) exercise, the level of poverty identified by the scale was 33% in Chakaria, 26% in Matlab, and 32% in other rural areas of the country. The validity of these results was tested against some traditional methods of identifying the poor, and the association of the scores with that of the traditional indicators, such as ownership of land and occupation, asset index (r=0.72), and the wealth ranking obtained from the PRA exercise, was consistent. A statistically significant inverse relationship of the poverty scores with the socioeconomic status was observed in all cases. The scale also allowed the absolute level of poverty to be measured, and in the present study, the highest percentage of absolute poor was found in terms of health (44.2% in Chakaria, 36.4% in Matlab, and 39.1% in other rural areas), followed by social exclusion (35.7% in Chakaria, 28.5% in Matlab, and 22.3% in other rural areas), clothing (6.2% in Chakaria, 8.3% in Matlab, and 20% in other rural areas), education (14.7% in Chakaria, 8% in Matlab, and 16.8% in other rural areas), food (7.8% in Chakaria, 2.9% in Matlab and 3% in other rural areas), and shelter (0.8% in Chakaria, 1.4% in Matlab, and 3.7% in other rural areas). This instrument will also prove itself invaluable in assessing the individual effects of poverty-alleviation programmes or policies on all these different dimensions.