Harassment on Women
Harassment:
The effects of “eve teasing” on development in Bangladesh
The Hunger Project • 5 Union Square West • New York, NY 10003 • www.thp.org
Imagine for a moment that you are an eleven year old girl in Bangladesh. After helping your mother cook and serve breakfast, you are preparing for school. You should be excited. You like learning and school provides a reprieve from the drudgery of household chores. But you are not excited. Instead, you are filled with dread. That is because every day, on the long walk from your house to school, you are surrounded and teased by a group of boys. The boys yell indecent things at you. They laugh. They push, pinch, and grab at you. Sometimes they pull at your clothes so violently that you are afraid they will be ripped right off of your body. By the time you get to school, your face is hot with humiliation and your eyes sting with the fear that you will have to go through the whole thing again on the walk home. ***
The Insidious Everyday Reality
Sexual harassment, often known as “eve teasing”, is a regular occurrence for the women and girls of Bangladesh. A recent study by the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA) showed that almost 90 percent of girls aged 10-18 have undergone the experience. The harassment can take a variety of forms and the perpetrators come from multiple walks of life; they are rich and poor, educated and uneducated; according to the BNWLA study, teenage boys, rickshaw pullers, bus drivers, street vendors, traffic police and often supervisors or colleagues of the working women had all been cited as “eve teasers".1 For the girls and women who are subject to sexual harassment, the experiences are traumatic and can leave deep psychological scars. The BNWLA study also noted that in the past two years, at least 12 girls have committed suicide in circumstances stemming from “eve teasing”.2 And the innocuousness of the label belies further violent implications. It is often associated with
The effects of “eve teasing” on development in Bangladesh
The Hunger Project • 5 Union Square West • New York, NY 10003 • www.thp.org
Imagine for a moment that you are an eleven year old girl in Bangladesh. After helping your mother cook and serve breakfast, you are preparing for school. You should be excited. You like learning and school provides a reprieve from the drudgery of household chores. But you are not excited. Instead, you are filled with dread. That is because every day, on the long walk from your house to school, you are surrounded and teased by a group of boys. The boys yell indecent things at you. They laugh. They push, pinch, and grab at you. Sometimes they pull at your clothes so violently that you are afraid they will be ripped right off of your body. By the time you get to school, your face is hot with humiliation and your eyes sting with the fear that you will have to go through the whole thing again on the walk home. ***
The Insidious Everyday Reality
Sexual harassment, often known as “eve teasing”, is a regular occurrence for the women and girls of Bangladesh. A recent study by the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA) showed that almost 90 percent of girls aged 10-18 have undergone the experience. The harassment can take a variety of forms and the perpetrators come from multiple walks of life; they are rich and poor, educated and uneducated; according to the BNWLA study, teenage boys, rickshaw pullers, bus drivers, street vendors, traffic police and often supervisors or colleagues of the working women had all been cited as “eve teasers".1 For the girls and women who are subject to sexual harassment, the experiences are traumatic and can leave deep psychological scars. The BNWLA study also noted that in the past two years, at least 12 girls have committed suicide in circumstances stemming from “eve teasing”.2 And the innocuousness of the label belies further violent implications. It is often associated with