We Can! Report on the OOG speaker meeting 13 May

We had a great talk last night from Farhana Hafiz - Oxfam Gender Programme Officer, Bangladesh. Farhana spoke about the We Can project, which tackles the problems of violence against women in South Asia. In many countries, social customs and attitudes tacitly condone and support violence against women, and are entrenched in families and communities. Farhana had an figure that 47% of women in Bangladesh had experienced physical abuse. Because the problem is so prevalent, it comes to seem normal and so there is a risk that communities and the judiciary take little action.

Oxfam has been involved in tackling this issue at a grass roots level, recruiting people as "Change Makers". (This Oxfam Video shows one Change Maker, Beauty Ara, doing her stuff, and also describing her own experiences).

Working together for mutual respect is at the heart of the ‘We Can’ campaign. As Farhana put it, the message was not that you shouldn't beat women because they were weak, it is that you shouldn't beat them because they are human beings. One interesting and encouraging statistic was that 49% of the Change Makers in Bangladesh were men - showing that the campaign was avoiding becoming either pigeonholed as exclusively a "womens issue" (as in i'gnorable by men') or alientating the menfolk.


Read more on Oxfam's work on gender equality.