NEW DELHI, Feb 10 - Scores of South Asian charities struggling to curb high child-marriage rates are backing a global movement spearheaded by South African peace icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu to end the practice affecting millions of girls and women worldwide.

Representatives from charities in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka gathered in New Delhi last week at the regional launch of the "Girls Not Brides" alliance – created by Tutu, 80, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for speaking out against white minority rule in South Africa.

Islamabad—Speakers at a conference here on Thursday urged for collective struggle and structural reforms to challenge Violence Against Women (VAW) in South Asian countries particularly. The three-day South Asian conference on “Reclaiming Space: from victimhood to agency: State and civil society response to VAW” organized by Rozan in Islamabad was widely attended by women activists from all over Pakistan who were joined by delegates from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

DHAKA, Apr 28, 2011 (IPS) - Bangladeshi women are pushing government to implement the recently approved National Women Development Policy (NWDP) 2011, which has met with strong resistance from Islamic clergy.

Leaders and activists of the Jatiya Mahila Sangstha (National Women’s Organisation) recently held rallies and formed human chains across major cities demanding the policy’s immediate enforcement. 

Sexual harassment against women in Bangladesh is turning deadly. According to local human rights groups 28 women committed suicide this year to escape frequent sexual harassment. Before killing themselves most of them wrote a note demanding an end to the sexual harassment known locally as ‘eve teasing’ where boys intercept girls on the street, and shout obscenities, laugh at them, pull or touch them or worse. Afroza Begum sits at the kitchen table and hands me the note her daughter wrote before she killed herself.

DHAKA, 13 December 2010 (IRIN) - Sexual harassment against girls and women in Bangladesh is turning deadly: 28 women have committed suicide this year and another seven attempted it to escape frequent sexual harassment, says a Dhaka-based human rights organization, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK).

A father also committed suicide fearing social insult after his daughter was harassed and in other cases, stalkers killed three women, reported the NGO.

Dhaka, Aug 22 (bdnews24.com)—The High Court has ruled that no women can be forced to wear burqa at work and educational institutions. 

This Sunday (13 June) has been designated "Eve Teasing Protection Day" by the education ministry in Bangladesh.

The announcement reflects increasing concern over the worrying number of girls and women who have recently committed suicide in the country to escape "Eve teasing", a euphemism for sexual harassment.

Figures released by the Ain-O-Shalish Kendra (ASK) human rights organisation reveal that 14 girls and women have taken their own lives over the past four months across the country as a direct result of the insults.

Bangladesh - Media Marketing of Beauty & Female Stereotypes

By Hana Shams Ahmed

DHAKA, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - When parents in Bangladesh fail to come up with a promised dowry for their newly married daughters things can get nasty.