We shed our blood to protect our mother tongue, Bangla. But, ironically, our very own mother language is now being used against women. If we closely look at the abusive words which are commonly used in our society during any heated argument or fight, we will notice that almost all of them are women-centered violating their dignity.

Language is the ultimate tool to express feelings, to convey messages, to share emotion. Language is also one of the most significant tools to create domination of one group upon another over the period of time through establishing norms crafted by words. As a result, demeaning womanhood using abusive words has become a practice in our society as well while most of the people do not even bother about the issue. 

To walk the talk, AAB came up with its another signature event titled ‘Women Shackled by Words’ to observe International Women’s Day, 2019. On this occasion, AAB shared its research finding report ‘Safe Cities for Women’, which said, 88 percent of Bangladeshi women face abusive words outside home. 

The study was conducted on 800 women and 400 men in seven divisions of the country from 2014 to 2017. As many as 86 percent women get sexually harassed by drivers or their helpers while 69 percent by shopkeepers and salesmen, the study says.

AAB Country Director Farah Kabir, Rights activist Khushi Kabir, Editor of the Daily Ittefaq Tasmima Hossain, Professor of Dhaka University Salma Akhter, TV channel News24’s Chief News Editor Shahnaz Munni, Film Director Shamima Akhter and AAB board member Dr Khalilur Rahman were present in the programme.

“Women must consider themselves human beings first to change this mindset.”