Prevent Sex Trafficking of Women in Bangladesh
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Updates from the Field:
Updates from the Field (or Progress Reports) on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.com by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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Index of Updates from the Field
September 2008 Update - Meet Poly Khatun
By Katherine Zavala - Coodinator of Programs, September 04, 2008 06:36 PM
Poly Khatun is a 16-year old girl who has empowered herself to improve her livelihood and of her family. Poly’s family was unable to support her anymore and she had few options. But ACD operates in her community and after learning more about them Poly took out a microcredit loan from ACD to raise goats.
Poly just bought one goat and but the goat was pregnant and gave birth after four months. Poly reared the kid goats and once they were strong and healthy Poly sold them and was able to help out her family financially. Heartened by the success of her goat-raising project Poly expanded and now also raises chickens, ducks and cows. She is very savvy, as she has planned that with the sales of the eggs produced by her chickens, she can ensure repaying her microcredit on time.
As an adolescent group member, Poly is very active in her community. She attends weekly meetings, facilitated by ACD, and has developed her awareness on several issues that affect her community, including the National Plan of Action of Children, and birth registration to reduce child marriages. Thanks to ACD, Poly received her life skills-based education, which has made her a more confident decision-maker and given her courage to find opportunities to help her family. She can share and discuss gender-based discrimination issues in her family and at the community level. Poly, along with other group members, has raised her voice in the community when child marriage occurs.
This is an example of how ACD activities have an integrated approach at empowering young girls who are vulnerable to sex trafficking in this part of Bangladesh.
June 2008 Update
By Katherine Zavala - Coordinator of Programs, IDEX, June 04, 2008 10:19 PM
Within the past year, GlobalGiving donors have generously supported ACD in its Life Skills Based-Education (LSBE) trainings and income-generation training. This was accomplished both by providing workshops and through ACD’s ongoing work in forming adolescent groups in their villages. Moreover, ACD forms committees to engage families including men as a way of gaining their “buy-in” as to their daughters’ future possibilities and worth in society. It is not sufficient for girls to know their rights. They must be able to count on their parents and key community leaders teachers, community leaders, clergy etc for support when they are threatened with abuse or trafficking.
Overall a total of 4,160 girls participated in the LSBE trainings with a heavy emphasis on such topics as:
prevention of sexual abuse, forced labor and trafficking
prevention of early marriage
birth registration (needed to enroll in school and vote)
girls’ (and women’s) rights under UN conventions and Bangladeshi law
promotion of healthy family relationships
prevention of domestic violence
access to health services including reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention.
Through these workshops they aim to build and restore girls’ self esteem and teach them to be their own advocates in a host of situations.
546 adolescent girls participated in income-generating activities such as cow, goat, hen and duck rearing, handicrafts, rice cultivation, tailoring, nursery, vegetable gardening, and pottery-making with the support of microcredit.
March 2008 Update
By Katherine Zavala - Program Coordinator, IDEX, March 06, 2008 05:50 PM
In January 2008, the IDEX Director of Programs visited Godagari, where ACD works with adolescents living in remote indigenous communities, where poverty levels are high and the majority are religious and linguistic minorities.
One of the villages she visited is Choitannopur village, where 70 families live. This community is comprised of people from an ethnic minority called Shawltal who are primarily Hindu and Christian (Bangladesh in a majority Muslim culture). There is no electricity and only one well serving all 70 families. The school in this village is a 1-hour walk and the monthly fees are 75 Taka ($1). Due to the distance, many children don’t go.
ACD is currently supporting an adolescent empowerment project in that village by providing 20 girls with life skills based education (LSBE), particularly focusing on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, child and women’s rights. The project promoted savings and small loans for income-generating projects. Providing alternative options to these girls helps to remove pressure for early marriage and trafficking.
The girls expressed confidence that they will not allow themselves to be married until they are at least 18 years old, the legal age for marriage. They requested further training to understand their rights and also more support for their income-generating projects, especially raising small livestock such as goats or chickens, a good option for girls whose parents do not own land.
December 2007 Update
By Katherine Zavala - Coordinator of Programs, December 13, 2007 06:19 PM
ACD facilitated five trainings on skill development for 100 young women to learn to manage poultry-raising projects. The objectives of the training were the following:
Builds skills and in-depth knowledge for managing poultry-raising projects, particularly in hen and duck-raising.
Motivate young women to initiate their own income-generating project, which will encourage self-reliance and uplift self-esteem.
Empower young women socio-economically.
As a result of ACD’s skill-development training, the following has been achieved:
30 young women are now raising hens and ducks.
20 young women have been provided with microcredits for rearing poultry as an income-generating project.
10 young women are receiving technical assistance from ACD’s staff.
Other 35 young women have submitted credit proposals to ACD to receive microcredits with the intention of starting poultry-rearing projects.
July 2007 Update
By Katherine Zavala - Asia Program Director, IDEX, July 19, 2007 05:01 PM
A total of 3 2-day trainings on life skill based education training have been accomplished. One was held on 27-28th February 2007 at Tanore and next two were held on 18-19th and 20-21st March 2007 in Godagari. ACD’s training officer named Rabea Khatun has conducted the training. Each training workshop was conducted with 20 participants of nearby areas. All the participants of the training were adolescent girls from the indigenous community. Issues discussed included the following:
Self-esteem
Children Rights
Child Health and Nutrition
Human Trafficking
Early Marriage and Dowry
Reproductive Health
HIV/AIDS
Drugs
The goal of these trainings is to provide awareness and skills that are critical in reducing the likelihood that they will be trafficked.
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