“Once upon a time when I was a child, I came to know about my classmates being groped by a stranger on their way to school. I want to raise awareness on this issue so that other girls do not have to face it as my friends did.”

-Says young activist Sadia Rahman Nidhi

Sadia Rahman Nidhi along with her friends has formed a platform called ‘Sharothy’ through which they are working for raising awareness on abuse and sexual harassment face by adolescents and young girls at different public and private spaces of their lives. After getting a training from Global Platform Bangladesh (A youth and capacity development hub of ActionAid Bangladesh) on Innovative campaign tools and Virtual Story Telling; Nidhi and her friends felt the urge to design a campaign to address this issue of abuse. Upon considering the timely demand for such campaign because of the rise in child and sexual abuse during the pandemic (according to several studies), Global Platform Bangladesh gave a small fund to ‘Sharothy’ to run the campaign project named ‘Tulbo Awaaz Ekhoni’.

Through this campaign, members of SHAROTHI collected 50/60 stories of child abuse through their social media friends and followers. After going through the stories, they made some illustration paintings reflecting some common cases of child and sexual abuse with a massage on how to stop that. They also made a Puthi gaan and prepared a video with a social media influencer focusing on raising awareness. 

Now these young people are continuing their effort to bring changes and through their eyes we dare to dream for a Bangladesh where no one will be vulnerable to child and sexual abuse.