Brave Men
BraveMen Campaign on COVID-19
The overall objective of this project will be to initiate an online policy dialogue on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender-based violence involving CoPs from Bangladesh, Burundi, Jordan, and the Netherlands. The policy dialogues in the form of webinars will be closely tied to experience sharing and generating a better understanding of how to prevent violence against girls, women, and SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) people during a pandemic like COVID-19 and ensuring better SRHR services and awareness.
Lessons learned
- People were timid to talk about SRHR services. As a conservative society, talking about SRHR services and issues are not well accepted in our community. People were unwilling to fill in the survey forms due to privacy concerns. Once we sat with the participants and showed them that personal information was not being collected and that we only needed the data to identify societal problems to solve them, they got on board. We also highlighted that their time is precious to our mission and that their input will be beneficial for future generations by highlighting how Women Empowerment benefitted our generation.
- While working on online violence and conducting a social media analysis we found that online-based violence was on the rise during the pandemic especially in the form of victim blaming, and the harassment of female entrepreneurs and female movements. Being overwhelmed by blind justification, hate speech and sarcastic and abusive comments, woman often abandon their ventures or refrain from starting their own businesses. We encountered similar violent online treatment and had to block the respective IDs on our page. The government of Bangladesh has commendably initiated Police Cyber Support for Women in order to raise awareness around and provide support to victims of online violence.
- The survey highlighted that people were less interested in accessing SRHR services during the pandemic and that pregnant women were unsure if they should visit the doctor physically or not. Good practices also came forward in this regard; There were online SRHR and maternal health care toolkits to reduce the necessity of visiting doctor physically. This in turn gave exposure to and promoted the use of online platforms during the pandemic, which drew even more attention to UNYSAB & CMMS’s massive campaign on Menstrual Cups for maintaining good hygiene at a lower cost.
- Intimate partner violence was also on the rise during the pandemic. This project tried to focus not only on the legal measure of intimate partner violence, but also on the impact intimate partner violence has on the life of the perpetrator, other family members and that of kids. The campaign promoted ways to establish a peaceful relationship based on respect and care, free of coercion in order to ensure overall wellbeing.
- Transgender people faced massive challenges during Lockdown as they are not well accepted in our society. Even when they had all the COVID-19 symptoms they were denied treatment. Due to lack of education, they also found it hard to make use of online alternatives. We concluded that Transgender people need in-person, exclusive surveys due to their unique needs and educational shortcomings.
Online Violence during COVID-19
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Intimate Partner Violence during COVID-19 Lockdown
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Did you know?
Raising SRHR awareness, one statistic at a time.
