Swisscontact Bangladesh celebrates the 30th anniversary of Orange the World

The 16 Days of Activism against violence against women and girls is an international campaign that takes place each year. It commences on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, until 10 December, Human Rights Day.

Swisscontact in Bangladesh carried out a series of activities to create awareness among the country team on violence against women and girls. Each day from day one of the activism campaign, the communication team of Bangladesh disseminated e-mails highlighting the goals of Orange the World movement. Colleagues engaged to share their personal goals and commitments to eliminating Gender Based Violence (GBV). The sharing process was thought-provoking and the conversation formally convened on the 15th Day of the campaign with a panel discussion with external guests.

A session was held on the topic “End violence against women now: Our roles in orange-ing the world”. Speakers included Ms. Tasaffy Hossain, Founder & Coordinator, Bonhishikha – Unlearn Gender; Ms. Mahjabeen Quader, Senior Policy Advisor-Economic Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Mr. Parvez M. Asheque, Chief of Party, USAID Advancing Universal Health Coverage (AUHC), and moderator Ms. Bipasha S. Hossain, Senior Technical Advisor, Portfolio and Communications Swisscontact in Bangladesh.

The insightful discussion shed light on how women and girls can face physical, emotional, and psychological violence in their families and at the workplace. It also touched upon how we, as a society, can stand up against violence against women and girls. Several recommendations for individuals, private sector organisations, and government institutions on how to "Orange the World" came out of the discussion:

• Educating our young boys and men to respect every gender, as much as we also target young girls and women with these various initiatives.
• Talking about violence against women and girls to allow space for women to express the different ways of violence that they are experiencing.
• Taking action from our individual spaces starting from home, to our workplace, to school, to streets, everywhere. Our action should resonate the ability to respect others, the ability to accept uniqueness and diversity in people around us.
• It is not the role of any institution or any individual or government or activists alone, we all have to play our roles in ending violence from our end together.