Ongoing projects

Empowerment of Returnee Women Migrants (ERWM)

Women are increasingly migrating independently or as primary household earners to improve their own or their families’ well-being, to earn income and send remittances home. Women’s migration and their earnings contribute to the development of themselves and their families and also contribute to women’s empowerment and advancement. To women in rural areas, the decision to seek work abroad, though seemingly daunting and perhaps dangerous, appears as a viable alternative to remaining in poverty, situations of violence, inequality and unemployment or underemployment.

Unfortunately, many women migrant workers find themselves receiving poor wages, working excessive hours, and exposed to labour and human rights violations. On their return, women migrants face multidimensional problems. Social reintegration becomes difficult because of long absence which results
in low acceptance by their family member and community. Economic reintegration is also hard because of the lack of finding new jobs after return as pattern of work is different in abroad. Women also suffer from various health hazards and psychological problems after they return. There is a lack of coordinated, integrated and comprehensive approach to sustainable What we do reintegration of returnee women migrants. Therefore, they are unable to get a suitable job or establish a viable business at home after they return.

In this backdrop, CWCS initiated a 4 years programme entitled “Empowerment of Returnee Women Migrants” in Keraniganj and Nawabganj upazilas under Dhaka district aimed to improving socio-economic reintegration of returnee women migrant workers from January 2020 to December 2023. The programme is supported by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

Activities at a glance

At the grassroots level

Awareness raising meetings including door-to-door campaigns for potential women migrants and their family members on safe migration
Identification of returnee women migrants who were victims of violence in abroad
Identification of returnee women migrants who were victims of violence in abroad
Group formation of returnee women migrants
Psycho-social support packages namely healthcare, individual, family and community counselling
Leadership and women empowerment training
Entrepreneurship training
Returnee women migrants were provided sewing training for making face masks in exchange of wages for returnee women migrants
Economic reintegration through Women Economic Empowerment (WEE)
Motivational and information sharing with Union Parishad Chairman and members.

At the national level

Launching of an Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) with women rights organization working on migration issues
Advocacy meetings with the Alliance members and key stakeholders from Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment and support services
Media advocacy on information sharing regarding women migrant worker’s rights
Policy formulation on reintegration of returnee women migrants.

At the very beginning of the programme, 4 inception meetings were held in the programme areas with government officials to inform them about the programme activities so that they are supportive to our forthcoming activities with potential and returnee women migrants.

At the grassroots level

Awareness raising meeting

About 16 awareness-raising meetings at community level with potential women migrants and their family members for awareness building on safe migration at various places of Nawabganj and Keraniganj Upazila. The main discussion were: what is migration; deciding life’s goal and its importance; discussion on worker’s rights and duties; 13 steps of safe migration; Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Migration Act, 2013 and its advantages; Wage Earners Welfare Board Act, 2018 and its welfare services; gender equality and present status of women in migration. In addition, discussion are held on 11 life skills techniques; management of remittances; healthcare and various diseases such as HIV/AIDS and its related remedies.

Door-to-door campaign

Door-to-door awareness campaigns were organized by distributing information materials on safe migration. Awareness were created among 3,562 community people by distributing leaflets and posters. Some key messages in the leaflets are the 13 steps of the migration process mainly: Decision making of going abroad; Registration in the Database of BMET & DEMO; Preparing Passport; Communicating with BMET & DEMO to know if recruiting agency is legal or not; Collect and preserve written receipts of all financial transactions; Undertaking necessary trainings from Technical Training Centres; Obtaining Smart Card from BMET; Visa authenticity and validity from BMET; Verification of contract; Opening 2 accounts; one is for family and other one is for individual’s saving; Obtaining medical test certificate and report from authorized medical service institution; Joining the briefing session of BMET; Passport, Visa & Job related documents need to be taken before boarding the plane; arrival at the destination country.

The posters conveyed mainly information on safe migration and slogans such as gender equality; know the relevant information and be skilled, only then it will be safe and successful migration; women are not a burden in our society, they are also an asset of the country due to their economic contribution; women are not a competitor, they are family supporters and family should be their strength.

Group formation of returnee women migrants

About 16 groups of 490 returnee women migrant workers were formed. In Keraniganj upazila it covered 4 unions namely Konda, Kolatia, Ruhitpur, Suvadda and in Nawabganj upazila covering some selected unions of Kolakopa, Boxonogor, Bandura, Agla, Churain and Galimpur.

Group meetings

About 55 quarterly group meetings were organized with 814 returnee women migrants from October 2021 to December 2022 at several unions at Nawabganj and Keraniganj upazilas. The discussion topics were about health awareness, personal hygiene, women empowerment, small business, clothing business, government loan and services, Union Digital Center’s information, agriculture trainings etc.

Capacity development training

About 5 capacity Development training were conducted with programme staff from July 2021- December 2022 at CWCS Conference Room, Dhaka on various issues such as challenges faced by potential and returnee women migrants; information about women group meeting manual and program procurement; women empowerment and women leadership; feminism; duty bearers and rights holders and advocacy techniques.

Discussion were also held on various policies such as HRM Policy and gender policy for identifying gaps and future suggestions; knowledge about office etiquette, office environment and employee relationship; working hours; performance; leave policy and to develop participants’ knowledge.

In addition, skills on accountability, localization tools and process in humanitarian actions and equip the staff with tools to utilize their knowledge in the field level activities as required; information about clarifying knowledge management and documentation; as well as tools of Monitoring and Evaluation.

Workshop on leadership and women empowerment

About 17 Leadership and Women Empowerment workshops were organized with 471 returnee women migrants at various Union Parishads of Keraniganj and Nawabganj upazilas. The main discussion points were: Gender and sex and its differences, gender barometer, gender role, gender relationship, gender equality and equity, gender division of work, women’s status and position in society, patriarchy, what is leadership, whom we can call leader, qualities and duties of a leader, women leadership and women empowerment as migrant worker, feminism and feminist leadership, human rights as women rights, what are constitutional rights, challenges and problems of women migrant workers.

Entrepreneurship training

About 13 entrepreneurship training were conducted with 325 returnee women migrant workers at various Union Parishad of Keraniganj and Nawabganj upazilas. The main discussion points were: Entrepreneurship and how to be the best entrepreneur etc., understanding business through a business model, group work sessions for making new Business Model and sharing individual ideas about entrepreneurship, proper use of credit and how to reduce the risk for your business, bookkeeping and accounting as important tools for own business, demo of how to sell goods to customer such as ask customer to buy your service and product, to make them understand and resolve, serving the customers, caring for customers after the sales and ask your ‘Happy Customers’ to help find ‘New Customers.

Sewing training

Two days long sewing training was conducted for returnee women migrant workers on face mask making which was held at CWCS Conference Room on 20-21 June 2022 with selected 20 women migrant workers who have experience of handling the sewing machines. The objective of this two days long sewing training is to make beneficiaries know how to sew face mask so that they can get financial support by sewing 5,000 face masks funded from our project “Empowerment of Returnee Women Migrants” and also, they can make face masks for economic benefits by selling them in the market.

Psychosocial counselling

About 377 returnee women migrants were communicated over mobile phone and provided psychosocial counselling to overcome their trauma and gain self-confidence. The counsellor also provided follow-up support to those beneficiaries who were in need.

Family counselling

About 53 families of returnee women migrants were communicated and provided psychosocial counselling to create awareness and positive changes which is also important for returnee women migrants so they do not suffer stigmatization and easily get acceptance in the family.

Group counselling

About 28 group counseling were conducted to 180 returnee women migrants at their community level to create a positive outlook of the community people so that the returnee women migrant workers are easily acceptable and not looked down.

Medical support

About 68 returnee migrant women were listed, validated, approved and provided healthcare support which included medical test, treatment and medicines through government health support service providers.

Women Economic Empowerment (WEE)

The Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) has involved 36 returnee women migrants in various economic activities. Women are doing diversity of livelihood activities namely clothing business, cow, goat and poultry rearing, pitha shop, grocery shop, fish business and vegetable cultivation etc. Women did not have enough money to develop
their own business was meagre, only enough for bare survival. However, after getting monetary support to enhance their income, their standard of living has improved for example their food intake, profit earning, initial business has prospered from small trading to selling of variety of grocery items. Within 4 months duration, women have started to have small savings and they dream of a better life ahead.

Motivational and information sharing meetings with Union Parishad Chairmen and Members

About 15 Motivational and information sharing meetings with 15 Union Parishad chairmen and members were organized to provide relevant information on women migration issues and to motivate them to keep track of the situation of women migration and to incorporate migration issues in the Union Digital Information Centre. The Union Parishad Chairmen and members appreciated the activities being implemented for returnee women migrants with the support of Manusher Jonno Foundation.

The Union Parishad Chairmen and Members shared the following issues

Union Parishad Chairmen stated that If 10 beneficiaries can upgrade their lives through CWCS program activities, then these meetings are definitely very effective.
Union Parishads chairmen and members should be present in the courtyard meetings organized by different organizations. Besides, they also do publicity about migration and trafficking and to spread awareness through miking. Need to prepare banner or festoon regarding all the services of Union Digital Information Centre to publicize about the facilities that Union Parishads are providing.
Union Digital Information Centre can be motivated to share information of women migration issues and keep track of the situation of women migrating abroad. However, women migrants do not share about their migration abroad with the Union Digital Information Centre or with Union Parishad women ward members. Although Union Parishad women members try to communicate with the women migrants but seems these women are not interested. In this regard, Chairmen and members wanted CWCS beneficiary data of returnee women migrants so that they can keep ward-wise information for their activities after returning back.
Union Parishad Chairmen expressed that the Centre should keep them updated about their programs so that they can attend whenever necessary. If Union Parishad Members will attend the programs then beneficiaries will trust CWCS easily and will be bound to repay the economic support after certain period of time.

Every Union Parishad has one room for providing all types of training which can be used for pre-departure training for potential women migrants.
Members agreed that returnee women migrants need counselling and they have seen many returnees are mentally imbalanced. Psychosocial counselling is of great importance because many migrants’ families are facing problems with their children who are leaving home and getting married without the consent of their parents besides problems of social stigmatization both in their families and communities.
Need to provide skill training to women migrants so that they could get decent job with better earning.
Migrant women never tell about their migration process to anyone. If they face problem then they come to the Union Parishad for help. They do not keep any prove about money transaction. Most of the women go abroad taking loans which they also can’t repay in time.
Many returnee women migrants who are economically vulnerable are in touch with the women ward members. Few returnee migrants are employed by the Union Parishad although many of them are in debt and unable to pay it. Even they ask for money to pay the debt.

Provide them economic support by providing various types of items such as goat, cow, hen, clothes, sewing machine etc. However, they cautioned that we should not provide cash because they will spend this money for different purpose.
Union Parishad members informed that they do Salish of women migration cases and wanted to know what they will do if women migrants approach them and whom to refer these cases, whether such types of cases can be referred to the appropriate authorities by CWCS.
Create sustainable job opportunities for returnee women migrants, moreover, government need to ensure social and job security for women migrants.
Women migrants go abroad secretly while intermediaries helps them in this process, as such chairmen and members are unaware of their departures. However, Chairmen and members are approached whenever women migrants face problems.
Form union protection committee for women migration issues at Union Parishad level so that women can get the relevant information regarding safe migration, support while working abroad and successful reintegration in their families and communities.

At the national level

Launching the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) with Women Rights Organizations working on migration issues.

The Launching Ceremony of the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) was organized on 21 April 2022 at Bijoy Ekattor Hall Room, Probashi Kallyan Bhaban, Dhaka. The Alliance for Women Migrant Voices consisted of 22 national and grassroots women’s rights organizations so that women migrant workers will be able to get equal rights, opportunities at their workplaces and can voice their demands because women migrant workers are subjected to a wide range of human rights violations, including physical, mental, financial, and sexual exploitation.

Objectives of the Alliance

Strengthen networking among women rights organizations for taking proactive role for women’s safe migration
Establish and ensure equal rights and opportunities for women migrant workers
Address the issue of discrimination and violence in the workplace of women migrant workers
Advocate for enactment/inclusion/amendment of Laws and policies related to women migrants’ rights and opportunities
Increase knowledge and awareness among the women

The Alliance was launched by the Chief Guest Honourable Minister Imran Ahmed, MP of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment with Special guests Shaheen Anam, Executive Director, Manusher Jonno Foundation and Mr. Ahmed Munirus Saleheen, PhD, Secretary, Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, chair of the AWMV welcomed the guests, government officials, AWMV members, representatives of INGOs and NGOs and media personnel. She stated that the number of potential women migrants are increasing every year. With significant increase in number of women migrants, it is time that the government, NGOs, CSOs and recruiting agencies all come forward to address the plight of women migrants so that women are not exploited in the whole migration process. Therefore we should collaboratively work together to realize migrants’ rights and ensure their safety and security. It was followed by a short introduction of the AWMV members by Co-Chair Fawzia Khondoker and the Charter of the Alliance was presented by Secretary General, Farida Yeasmin.

Shaheen Anam, in her speech as a Special Guest, said that in most cases, the way out of poverty is to earn more money by going abroad which is sometimes very risky for women. In 2021, 13 percent of the total migrant workforce in Bangladesh was women. Therefore, by no means we should stop women from migrating abroad. However, we do not want that women migrants are being pushed into precarious condition, they become victims of sexual harassment, coming back empty handed, getting low wages, being forced to work for a long time etc. We are trying to address these issues to increase the negotiation skills of the workers who are willing to migrate so that they can get access to justice and it is possible to ensure safe migration for all. In addition, for the returnee women migrants who are facing stigmatization, we need to raise their voice against such discriminations. Therefore, it is the role of the Alliance members to stand by them, to make their family members understand what they have gone through while working abroad for which they are not to be blamed. The collective voice can make a difference.

Ahmed Munirus Saleheen, Secretary, Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, in his speech as Special guest stated that we all serve as catalysts for the welfare of migrants. You’re on board. Coming here, I notice that many organizations are working in isolation for the same goal. We should all be on the same platform. Stand up and collaborate. He claims that there is no substitute for acquiring skills. He emphasized on the whole of society and whole of government approach.

Honourable Minister Imran Ahmed MP, Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment was the Chief Guest and launched the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices. He stated that women are the backbone of our society and with migrants, there are many possibilities, as well as problems and solutions. Please give us some advice because skilled women workers are required in many more countries, including Germany and Japan. If this Alliance or frontline workers work closely with our advisors, then we will be able to train and educate the women. I believe I will be able to continue on the path of safe migration by transforming them into a safe workforce. Women migrant workers have the potential to be change makers in this country’s economy. This is at the national level, with the goal of liberating Bangladeshi women migrant workers from hazardous and exploitative working conditions. Now that an Alliance is being formed, those of you who work with women migrant workers are welcomed to consult with the Ministry on any issue. Please come and speak with us. Because you are working at the grassroots level, you must raise awareness for those who are illiterate, incompetent, travel abroad blindly and relying on middlemen.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, concluding remarks especially thanked the Minister for his commitment towards women migrant workers and his offer to welcome us to consult on any matters relating to women migrants. She also thanked the Secretary Dr. Ahmed Munirus Saleheen and Shaheen Anam, Executive Director, Manusher Jonno Foundation for their time and active participation. Dr. Rubina Hossain, Co-chair of AWMV delivered the vote of thanks to all the participants for attending the launching ceremony.

Information sharing meeting with the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) members

Two half-yearly information sharing meetings with the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) members were organized at Conference Room, Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS), Dhaka. The objective of these events were to identify and know the reasons of irregular migration and recommendations from AWMV members on safe migration and free from exploitation in the whole migration process.

Modality of these meetings were mostly group work where AWMV members discussed on women migrants’ experiences during the different phases of migration and put forward policy recommendations. The first meeting had four groups and discussed on: Decision making phase and role of middleman; Lack of Information on safe migration; Work experiences in abroad; and Reintegration of returnee women migrants. In the second meeting members were divided into three groups and discussed on: Effective awareness raising for potential migrants; Access to justice for women migrants; and Social & economic reintegration of returnee migrants.

Members came up with the following recommendations:

Keeping regularly updated information about migration in the Union Digital Information Centre to be shared with women migrants
Train the Union Digital Information Centre staff of Union Parishads
Sensitize and motivate Chairmen and members of Union Parishads on women migration issues
Verification of visa and contract letter needed by having a desk at the union level to provide relevant information
Provide training to women migrant workers which should be subject wise, professional skill and languages of destination countries training
Ensure accountability of middlemen and involve them legally
Job appointment letter with salary, medical, fixed working hours, provision of regular contact with the family back home and security should be given

List of women migrants should be published online and offline so that the Bangladesh embassy in destination countries are well informed
Reintegration should start with individual, family and community counselling
Job opportunities should be created according to her skills
Create linkages with government and private institutions

Developing small businesses using local resources
Proper utilization of remittances
Arrange business management training
Facilitate the loan facility of Probashi Kallyan Bank.
Need massive publicity such as bill board on safe migration
Providing legal aid services.

National level media advocacy

About 3 national level media briefings on the followings: Information regarding issues related to women migrant workers’ rights based on media reporting; Media Advocacy for the Rights of Women Migrants; and Media Advocacy for the Rights of Returnee Women Migrants at Tofazzel Hossain Manik Mia, National Press Club, Dhaka. In the above media briefings, CWCS prepared presentation jointly with resource persons which were informative and based on year wise media coverage. The presentations were followed by open discussion from the media personnel as well as NGO representatives who are working for safe migration of women.

Journalists from various print and online media participated actively during the media briefing discussions. namely Business Standard, The Daily Star, New Age, Dainik Jugantar, Dainik Ittefaq, Prothom Alo, Dainik Samakal, Kalbela, Banglanews24.com, The Business Eye, Daily Manobjomin, Ajker Patrika and Daily Jaijaidin. There was also participation from television channels and YouTube in these media briefing discussion.

Given below the specific recommendations:

Positive wording in media reporting
Media should respect the dignity of migrants
Avoid hateful and demining words
Media should provide the authentic sources so that women do not depend on the middlemen for migration-related information
Media should ensure a balanced coverage
Promote evidence-based reports.

Dialogue with Government and Non-Government service providers for Safe Migration and Reintegration of Returnee Women Migrants

Dialogue with Government and Non-Government service providers for Safe Migration and Reintegration of Returnee Women Migrants was organized on 27 November 2022 at CIRDAP, Topkhana Road, Dhaka. It was attended by 63 participants from various government service providers as well as IGNOs and NGOs.

The welcome address was delivered by Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS and the dialogue was facilitated by Advocate Farida Yeasmin, Executive Member, CWCS.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim presented a brief introduction of the programme “Empowerment of Returnee Women Migrants” and hopes that the services of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) will be promoted.

Chief Guest Md. Shahidul Alam, ndc, Director General, Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment informed that the BMET would hire trainers for the training center from the returnee women migrants so that they can share their experiences which will be very helpful for the trainees.

A model was prepared for providing training by the returnees at the local technical training centers in Chattogram, Cumilla and Narsingdi districts. Moreover, government initiated a database in 2021 but it was yet to function and BMET is working to ensure insurance policy for all migrants so that if anyone failed to get desired job in destination country will not be a loser. Besides, he especially urged women migrant workers to properly learn the language of the destination country before migrating abroad. He further added that there should be a national standard of eligibility requirements for individuals who wants to migrate abroad.

Mazibur Rahman, Managing Director, Probashi Kallyan Bank (PKB) observed that there is a positive change among migrant workers to take bank loan in the past one year and ‘’PKB has distributed Taka 900 crore in a year which was Taka 784 in the past 10 years.’’ He further informed that women returnee migrants could get special rehabilitation loan launched by the bank during the COVID-19 pandemic but unfortunately has been low.

Md. Aminur Haque, Assistant Director, Wage Earners’ Welfare Board (WEWB) informed about the financial facilities of Taka 35,000 for any migrant who dies abroad and Taka 3 lac to support family members. There is also the Airport Help desk to assist the women migrants going abroad.

Md. Masud Rana, Senior Statistical Officer (Deputy Director), Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) urged that we need to work in collaboration, cooperation, coordination and cohesion. We all need dedication to work towards the same goal. Wage Earners’ Welfare Board (WEWB) have insurance coverage up to Taka 4 lac and migration clearance card is available at the home of the migrant without any hassle.

Mohammad Mahdy Hassan, National Programme Coordinator, GLO.ACT Bangladesh Programme emphasized on referral linkages and said we need to think what are the demands of returnee women migrants and accordingly what can organizations provide them. He also added that road map of the referral mechanism is being developed and we need to work in collaboration with concerned ministries.

Mohammad Ikram Hossain, Country Coordinator, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) stated that ICMPD is advocating to establish DEMO offices in all the migration prone areas. They are working in 64 districts to raise awareness on safe migration. He emphasized on the referral mechanism and to upgrade TTC training. He also shared some of their innovative activities such as they have added Imam of mosques to spread awareness and positivity, taken initiatives to train journalists to change the narrative of migration.

Mohuya Leya Falia, Senior Coordinator expressed her concern about training at the Technical Training Centres, especially the quality of training and maintenance of hygienic environment for the trainees. Moreover, there is no effective database of returnee migrants and no one knows about their condition. She urged that the government should incorporate clauses that ensure safety and security of women migrants in the destination countries. She further said regarding social safety net programmes, we need to establish linkages with Department of Social Welfare. We need separate support category to provide services to our beneficiaries. Moreover, BMET has a strong role of monitoring if the environment is gender sensitive towards women migrants. We need to think about their wellbeing, mechanism and create a world for women migrants. In addition she stressed about safety and security of women migrant workers.

In addition, there were other Government service providers who attended from Technical Training Centre (TTC), Probashi Kallyan Bank (PKB), Wage Earners’ Welfare Board (WEWB), Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) and NGO representatives such as BOMSA, BNSK, OKKAF and Films 4 Peace Foundation.

National Level Consultation on Policy Framework Regarding Reintegration of Returnee Women Migrants

National Level Consultation on Policy Framework Regarding Reintegration of Returnee Women Migrant was organized on 18 November 2023 at CIRDAP, 17 Topkhana Road, Dhaka. About 60 participants attended the Consultation from various government service providers namely District Employment & Manpower Office, Wage Earners’ Welfare Board, Prabashi Kallayan Bank, Bureau of Manpower, Employment & Training, Departments of Social Services and Women Affairs, and RAISE project; development partners from ILO, Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation Bangladesh and Manusher Jonno Foundation. National and grassroots levels NGOs also attended the meeting.

In the Keynote presentation, it was stated that participation of women migrant workers from Bangladesh has been showing a declining trend of women migration in recent years. Several factors such as absence of social reintegration services, hazardous work environment, and stigma against the returnees as the leading causes behind this declining trend. In 2016, more than one lakh Bangladeshi women (15.58 percent) were among 757,731 workers who went abroad. In subsequent years, the percentage of women migration from Bangladesh came down to 13.85 percent in 2018, 12 percent in 2021, nine percent in 2022, and only five percent so far this year. For the last 10 years, women migration has been within 6-19 percent of the total migration, which shows that the manpower export sector of Bangladesh is largely male dominated.

Many of these women workers, who mostly go to the gulf countries, often face physical, mental and sexual abuse, alongside lower salaries than original contract and poor living and healthcare facilities. These adverse situations often force the women to return to Bangladesh without any proper plan and sufficient compensation, the speakers also said, adding that social reintegration of these female migrant workers into their communities has remained a challenge in Bangladesh as there is no data base on migration.

Barrister Shameem Haider Patwary, Member of Parliament, Bangladesh and Chairperson, Bangladesh Parliamentarians’ Caucus on Migration and Development, who was the Chief Guest of the Consultation meeting said, “We don’t have reliable data about the returning women migrant workers. We do not know why they are returning, what adverse experiences they went through. They simply blend into the society and we cannot track them afterwards.” He further added, “There should be a separate database and budget for the returnee women migrants to facilitate their reintegration process into the community.”

A draft policy framework on reintegration of returning women migrant workers was presented in the meeting where a separate database on the returning women migrant workers, estimation of remittance earned, financial literacy, decent employment, healthcare and counselling services, and raising awareness to alleviate stigma against these workers were proposed.

“Along with economic empowerment, providing psycho-social counselling to the returnees is also very important. These services can decrease the impact of social stigma and help them to find a decent, mainstream livelihood after their return,” said Jannatul Firdaus Rupa, Assistant Director, District Employment and Manpower Office, Dhaka.

International Day Celebrations

The ERWM programme celebrated the various international days, especially those related with women rights towards achieving equality and women’s empowerment:

International Day of Girl Child

The event was held at Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS) in Dhaka to celebrate International Day of Girl Child with 7 staff of CWCS on 11 October 2021. International Day of the Girl celebrates the importance, power, and potential of girls around the world and focuses attention on the particular problems they can face during the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing inequalities and disrupted access to vital health and support services

International Women's Day

On 8 March 2022, International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global initiative to celebrate annually to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women. International Women’s Day was celebrated at Samsabad, Kolakopa, Nawabganj upazila Parishad with 25 women migrant workers and Konda Union Parishad with 22 women migrant workers by bringing out a rallies to sensitize the community people on women rights. The day is a focal point in the women’s rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. The purpose of this event was to recognize the day when women are recognized for their achievements irrespective of their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political background.

International May Day

On 11 May 2022, International May Day was celebrated at Kolakopa Union, Nawabganj with 23 women migrant workers and Konda Union Parishad, Keraniganj with 25 women migrant workers. International May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, is celebrated in over 80 countries across the world on 1st May to commemorate the efforts and victories of the workers’ class and the labour movement. The purpose of this day was to recognize and acknowledge the historic struggles that have shaped the ideas of social justice and basic rights in workplaces across the world. We celebrated the day to remember the past and efforts made to empower the workers of today with the required knowledge of their rights and responsibilities.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (Orange Day)

On 29 November 2021, The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in short Orange Day is an international campaign that takes place each year. Orange day was celebrated at CWCS Field Office, Samsabad, Nawabganj upazila with 27 women returnee migrant workers. The purpose of this day was to inform beneficiaries about the significance of Orange Day, to increase awareness and share knowledge and innovations regarding how to eliminate violence against women. On 29 November 2022, Orange day was organized at Nawabganj Shahid Minar, Kolakopa Union, Nawabganj upazila, Dhaka with 23 returnee women migrant workers. It was also celebrated at Konda Union Parishad, Dhaka with 27 returnee women migrant workers. Orange Day has also observed in the Head Office of Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS) with 8 staff of CWCS.

Begum Rokeya Day

On 9th December 2021, Begum Rokeya Day was celebrated at Conference Room, CWCS, Dhaka with 14 participants including President and Executive Members of CWCS. The purpose of this event was to pay tribute to Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a leading 19th century Bengali feminist writer, social reformer and pioneer of women’s education social reformer and pioneer of women’s education. She is considered a pioneer of women’s liberation in South Asia for her enormous efforts to establish gender equality and ensure female education. There were two guest speakers namely Taskeen Fatema Moona, Vice-President and Nusrat Sultana, Treasurer of CWCS. Nusrat Sultana gave her presentation on Begum Rokeya’s Philosophy of Education. She shared Begum Rokeya’s perspective of education of why education is important, how the syllabus was designed at that time and three important points of education etc. Taskin Fatema Moona discussed about Rokeya’s book entitled “Sultana’s Dreams” and narrated the significance of this day.

Human Rights Day

On 10th December 2021, Human Rights Day was celebrated at Konda Union, Keraniganj near Keraniganj Field Office. Human Rights Day is celebrated across the world to raise awareness about the rights that all human beings are entitled irrespective of religion, sex, language, race, color, nationality and so on. In this regard, a human chain was formed by 30 returnee women migrant workers to inform beneficiaries about the significance of the day and to increase awareness about their rights.

On 10th December 2022, Human Rights Day was celebrated by organizing a rally at Teghoria Union, Keraniganj from 10.00 am to 12.00 pm with 30 returnee women migrants followed by a speech about the significance of the day by the Principle of Baghoir High School.
It was also celebrated in the Agla Union Paishad, Nawabganj with Agla Chairman Shirin Chowdhury who participated in the rally with our beneficiaries from 11.00 to 1.00 pm. The main theme of these rallies was “Shobar Jonno Morjada, Swadhinota ebong Neybichar.”

International Migrants Day

On 18th December 2021, International Migrants Day was celebrated at Samsabad, Kolakopa, Nawabganj upazila Parishad with 25 women migrant workers. The United States has designated 18 December as International Migrants Day to acknowledge the importance of protecting the rights and dignity of migrants around the world. The purpose of this day was to recognize the contributions made by millions of migrants to the economies of their host and home countries and to promote respect for their basic human rights. On this day, CWCS organized rally on the theme in Bangladesh “Shoto Borshey Jatir Pita Suborney Swadhinata, Ovibasoney Anbo Morjada O Noitikota.”
On 18th December 2022, International Migrants Day was celebrated in both Nawabganj and Keraniganj upazilas. About 30 returnee women migrant workers brought out a rally in Kolakopa Union under Nawabganj Upazila from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm. In Keraniganj upazila, 25 returnee women migrants also did a rally along with the Technical Training Centre (TTC) of Keraniganj from 1.00 pm to 3.00 pm.

Novel Strategies to Fight Child Sexual Exploitation
and Human Trafficking Crimes and Protect their Victims - HEROES

HEREOS is a research oriented project which is funded by European Commission (EC) Brussels and managed by Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Spain. It is a 3 years project starting from 1 December 2021 which is being implemented by 24 (initially 27) consortium partners from Europe, Latin America and Bangladesh.

It is an ambitious, multi-disciplinary and international project with a victim-centered approach, whose main objective is to reinforce and enhance the coordinated response of Law Enforcing Agencies (LEAs) and other stakeholders regarding prevention, investigation and victim assistance of Trafficking of Human Beings (THB) and Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSA/CSE) crimes.

The project contains 11 Work Packages (WPs) led by consortium partners. CWCS is working under the Work Package (WP) 5 as a lead of Task 5.6 within this WP.

CWCS is contributing in HEROES project as lead of Task 5.6 of WP 5 which is Child rights promotion and protection: awareness-raising, education and information.

The most effective way for promoting and protection of child rights is by raising awareness, educating and engaging civil society, teachers, parents, children and youth groups, social workers, local leaders, police officials and media groups.

In this context, awareness-raising campaigns on the protection of children will be launched on different media and online channels: (i) Print and other media (e.g. newsletter, participation in seminars, expert meetings, conferences, events and interaction with civil society, academia) (ii) Online, including social media (e.g. the most used web pages and networks by children – YouTube, Facebook, etc.), Heroes Twitter account (using #Heroes4Children as one of the key hashtags to maximize the visibility of the project).

HEROES project activities

Kick-off meeting

At the initial stage of the project, CWCS research team participated at a two-day virtual kick-off meeting organized by UCM on 15-16 December 2021. There were short presentations from all the 27 participating organizations by introducing the organizations, and their role and activities in the HEROES project.
Following the kick-off meeting, some lead organizations namely Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Spain; Kentro Meleton Asfaleias (KEMEA), Greece; Trilateral Research Limited (TRI), Ireland; International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), Austria; International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), Switzerland had zoom meetings with their supporting organizations to explain more explicitly about their tasks and how other partners like CWCS can collaborate and contribute in their Work Packages.

1st Consortium meeting at Madrid, Spain

The project team leader of CWCS, Prof. Ishrat Shamim attended the three-day long 1st Consortium Meeting at Faculty of Law, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain on 8 – 10 June 2022 organized by the consortium lead (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) of HEROES project. All of the consortium members of the HEROES project participated in the meeting. There was mainly discussion on the implementation status of the HEROES project, challenges faced to implement the activities, finding the best ways to addressing the challenges and related issues.

Awareness raising Campaign

Launching of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights

The Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights was launched on 30^th July 2022 at 6:00 pm (BST) with four guest speakers namely Prof. Ishrat Shamim, Founder President, Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS), Bangladesh; Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher, GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain; Guillermo Galarza Abizaid, Vice President, Partnerships and Law Enforcement Training, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) in Alexandria, VA, USA; and Muhammad Mahdy Hassan, National Programme Officer (TIP & SOM), UNODC Regional Office for South Asia, Bangladesh. The event well attended by 59 participants from home and abroad.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim expressed that children are to be protected from all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation and appropriate measures should be in place.

Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco stated that campaign is one of the activity that we will develop in the project to prevent such crimes. Guillermo Galarza Abizaid felt that we need to educate children, we need to continue educate parents, we need to raise awareness among policy makers on the issue to protect our children. Muhammad Mahdy Hassan suggested that we need to design our awareness raising messages in a way so that it can be easily used by the care givers, by the adult people, so that everyone can support the children so that children can easily avoid the vulnerability for being the victims of human trafficking.

Red Heart Campaign Mission is committed to promote child rights and protect children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking.

Red Heart Campaign Vision is to have a world free from child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking where children can grow up happy, healthy and safe.

Participants were requested to:

Join the movement: #SaveFACE4Children

Centre for Women and Children Studies has developed hashtag to maximize the visibility of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights to save abused, exploited and trafficked children.

Contributing in other Work Packages (WPs)

CWCS has responded to some of the Work Packages and have sent their required research reports pertaining to Bangladesh namely desk review of status quo assessment and best practices to combat THB and CSE/CSA; use cases on online child abuse and exploitation and online based human trafficking to formulate identifying fake job offer apps, anti-grooming mobile apps and artificial intelligence (AI) based tools kit.

To ensure the safety and security of the project data and human participants to be involved in different activities CWCS has prepared a Data Protection Policy (DPO) and deployed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) according to the requirement of the project.

Developing and Publishing IEC Materials

A Red Heart Campaign badge was designed and printed for mass distribution to promote child rights as a campaign material. In addition, a Brief of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of sexually abused, exploited and trafficked children has been developed and published to create awareness among the various stakeholders working on sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking of children.

Given below the sample of the badge and the cover of the brief of the Red Heart Campaign:

Activities on Online Social Platforms

Activities on Facebook: CWCS started the informative posts on child rights issues related to the HEROES project on Facebook from July 2022 in the Facebook page Centre for Women and Children Studies – CWCS. Since then, we have been liked by 331 users/persons. Among them, many international, regional and national organizations, media personnel, students liked our Facebook Page. In addition, grassroots level organizations to name a few like Sylhet Development Society, Suha Bd, Katnarpara Nari Unnayan Sangstha, Sharp, USS have added on our Facebook page.

Activities on Twitter: CWCS started the twits on Twitter regarding the child right issues the HEROES project from July 2022. Since then, 144 followers have followed our Twitter ID namely “CWCS_BD”. Among them, many international, regional and national organizations, media personnel, students followed our Twitter ID.

Stakeholder Meetings

1^st Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused and Exploited Children was held on 30 August 2022 at CWCS Conference Room from 2:00pm-5:00pm. As the most effective way for promoting and protection of child rights is by rising awareness, educating and engaging civil society, the meeting aimed to involve 25 INGOs and NGOs from home and abroad who work to promote child rights and save children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. In addition, HEROES partner organizations from other European countries and USA also joined the meeting virtually. Guest Speakers gave their valuable speeches. Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain elaborated on the HEROES project and introduced the consortium partners from European countries, Latin America and Bangladesh. She briefly discussed about the main objectives of the HEROES project aimed at prevention, investigation, and victim assistance.

Yujin Park, Head, Migration, Protection and Assistance (MPA) Unit, a.i. IOM Bangladesh informed that all over the world, 5% of the money allocated for the purpose of development is spent on the welfare of children. She said that during the pandemic, 85% of children in Bangladesh dropped out of school and college. During the pandemic, children depended on digital world for education and communication which was one of the factors for the increase of child abuse and exploitation online. Therefore, in the coming days, we should work on the online child exploitation and find ways to prevent such crimes.

Guillermo Galarza Abizaid, Vice President, Partnerships and Law Enforcement Training, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) in Alexandria, VA, USA presented on the prevalence on online child sexual exploitation. ICMEC is making the world safer for children by eradicating child abduction, sexual abuse and exploitation and they want to advocate, train and collaborate to protect the world’s children. The issues they addressed that child sexual abuse material (CSAM), child sex trafficking, abduction, online grooming, online child abuse, commercial sexual exploitation all are related with each other. National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) made 2021 CyberTipline Reports app. Most CyberTipline reports involve the upload of child sexual abuse material by users outside of the U.S. Many countries submit their reports to NCMEC and from Bangladesh 1,743,240 cases were reported which is a huge number and very alarming. He asserted that online child sexual exploitation not victimless crime: these are violent crimes involving real children, and these children are re-victimized every time the image of their abuse is viewed/distributed. In 2020, about 21.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation were from NCMEC’s CyberTipline. However, he is optimistic and hoped that if we all work together, we can create a safer world for children.

Participants discussed on various pertinent issues such as vulnerability factors to child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking; nature of online aspect of child abuse and exploitation; legal remedies and gaps in implementation; and put forward policy recommendations.

Many participants volunteered to carry forward the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights and Save Children from Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and join our movement #SaveFACE4Children.

2^nd Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused and Exploited Children was organized on 11October 2022 from 2:00pm-5:00pm at CWCS Conference Room with young men and women in the age group of 19-25 who are engaged in various livelihood activities. About 4 young men and 7 women and their 5 mentors attended the meeting. Guest Speakers from abroad presented their deliberations. Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS; Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain delivered an overview of the HEROES project. Zoe Colpaert, HEROES, Europe Program Manager; International Center for Missing and Exploited Children; Alexandria, USA highlighted the Global fight against online child exploitation and the role of ICMEC in this regard. Jana-Isabelle Dilger, Research Analyst-Modern Slavery and THB at Trilateral Research; London, UK presented on Children and young adults recruited for County Lines drug traﬃcking in the UK.

Wahida Banu, Executive Director, Aparajeyo Bangladesh gave an overview of the situation of child exploitation and trafficking in Bangladesh and she shared the experience of street, abandoned and children in prostitution.

In the breakup session, participants discussed on challenges regarding child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking and put forward action plans. Group A discussed on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and identified challenges. Group B discussed Access to Child Protection for Victims and identified challenges at the national level such as: victims lack legal assistance, lack of access to proper medical and psychiatric treatment, lack of separate legal aid unit for child victims, and government campaign is limited on this issue. Group C discussed on Reintegration of Child Victims and identified challenges at the national level namely: lack of shelters at government and private levels; not providing emotional and social support to victims; lack of resettlement arrangements; oppressed at the government level; and the cause of their problem is not properly presented to the government authority.

Brief of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights was launched and participants were requested to join our movement #SaveFACE4Children.

3rd Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Students and Faculty Members was held at Seminar Room of East West University, Dhaka on 27^th October 2022 from 3:00pm-5:30pm. About 34 students and 5 faculty members attended the meeting from East West University.

Guest speakers were: Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain gave an Overview of HEROES’s project and Zoe Colpaert, HEROES/Europe Program Manager, International Center for Missing and Exploited Children; Alexandria, USA highlighted the Global fight against online child exploitation and Dr. Mumita Tanjeela, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology East West University, Dhaka presented an Overview of the Situation of Child Exploitation and Trafficking in Bangladesh.

In the breakup session, participants were divided into 4 groups to discuss on challenges regarding child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking and put forward action plans. Group A discussed on the Preventive measures to stop child exploitation and students identified child labour, drug addiction, and domestic violence as challenges at national level. Group B discussed on Safety measures against online child exploitation and shared that online child exploitation and abuse have increased in recent times because of the easy access of smart mobiles and internet connectivity. Moreover, during the pandemic, children were introduced to attending online classes which was one of the driving force behind grooming and cyberbullying. Group C discussed on Challenges and remedies related to child protection. They identified that there is the prevalence of child labour of very young children where age restriction is not followed at all. Children as young as 14 years are being employed in jobs that are hazardous and risky while there is lack of protection for these children they are forced to earn a living due to abject poverty of their families. Group D discussed on Assistance to child victims where they stated that child victims of early marriage is a hidden phenomenon where girl children as young as 12 years old are being exploited by their husbands and in-laws. Child marriage is a harmful practice and steps should be taken to reduce its prevalence and assistance to victims.

Brief introduction of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights and Save Children from Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking was presented and participants were requested to join our movement #SaveFACE4Children. Badges and briefs of the Red Heart Campaign were widely distributed among the students.

Many students who are members of the Sociology club volunteered to carry forward the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights and Save Children from Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and to join our movement #SaveFACE4Children.

4^th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Social Workers was organized at the CWCS Conference Room on 14^th November 2022 from 2:00pm-5:30pm. About 26 social workers attended the meeting from various clubs and organizations who are involved in charitable work. Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS chaired the meeting and welcomed the participants and guests. Guest speaker Zoe Colpaert, HEROES/Europe Program Manager, International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), USA presented the Global fight against online child exploitation and she highlighted global challenge, technology solutions such as hotlines and portals; and the partnership work of ICMEC in capacity building training and e-learning; and research on child sexual abuse material.

After the presentations by guest speaker, there was breakup session into the following 3 groups to discuss on Challenges regarding Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and Put Forward Action Plans. Group A worked on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking; Group B on Access to Child Protection for Victims and Group C on Reintegration of Child Victims.

The plenary session was group presentation followed by a brief introduction of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights and Save Children from Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and participants were requested to join the movement #SaveFACE4Children.

Many social workers showed their interest to share and carry forward the Red Heart Campaign messages among their group members.

5th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Parents

The 5th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Parents was organized at the CWCS Conference Room on 25th February 2023 from 2:00pm-5:00pm. About 28 parents attended the meeting.

Introductory session

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS chaired the meeting and welcomed the participants and guest speaker. Participants gave a brief introduction and shared their experiences especially on various forms of online abuse being faced by their children having easy access to internet and social media platforms in recent times.

Speech of guest speaker

Guest speaker Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain gave an overview of the HEROES project which aims at prevention, investigation, and victim assistance being implemented by 24 consortium partners from Europe, Latin America and Bangladesh.

Breakout session to promote child rights

There was breakout session into 3 groups to discuss on challenges regarding prevention, access to child victims, and reintegration of child victims to put forward action plans followed by presentation at the plenary session.

Group A discussed on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking. They have identified challenges such as children should be taught about bad touch or when they are abused by someone or close relatives which they cannot share it with their parents, brothers and sisters for fear of shame. Children may face problems from strangers, house tutors, house worker, elderly persons, leaders of work-place, driver, transport workers, as well as they should avoid late night parties, inappropriate peer groups, sexual and adult movies, pictures and books. Children should also be careful while using mobile phones and computers.

Action plans being suggested were to not permit your girl alone with driver; to always protest when you see an illegal action; parents should be friendly with children so that they can share their problems and parents should also provide counselling to their children to be careful. It should start from the family while government should provide social security to underage children to prevent such abuse. For example, child marriage mainly occurs due to lack of security of the girl child. Television programmes and campaigns could inform children about abuse, exploitation and how to protect themselves. Parents should spend quality time with children, so that children can share their life incidents and experiences, good or bad. Children should be alerted so that they do not share their single photos in Facebook. Parents should monitor their children especially with whom they are in touch through mobile and internet as they often bullied through social media. Children should use some protective weapon like paper spray to protect offline harassment. Children should avoid and also be careful in crowded places like hospitals, markets and public gatherings.

Group B discussed on Access to Child Protection for Victims. They have identified challenges like lack of access to child protection, less time spend between children and parents. Parents are not friendly and frank with their children in providing the right information about their mental and physical health and well-being. As such daughters feel hesitant to share any sexual harassment incidents or issues with their mothers. Parents should discuss with their child what is good touch and bad touch. Police does not always show positive attitute towards a victim. Issues like trust towards strangers, lack of awareness about sexual exploitation, easy access to strangers online makes them susceptible. Some action plans were also suggested by them such as nurturing, attachment and enriching knowledge of parenting of child and youth development. Make children aware about the scenario of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Parents must listen to what their children want to share and have a friendly relationship instead of blaming them. However, children should not be given easy access to mobile phones. Children should be properly taken care of before an incident happens and also keep track of their friends. If any child is in danger, parents should call the hotline number and inform the police for rapid action. Children should also be knowledgeable about the child helpline numbers.

Group C discussed on Reintegration of Child Victims. Participants identified issues and challenges of reintegration of child victims. When children are being sexually abused or exploitated, they are unaccepted by their families and communities. It seems that they are to be blamed of what happened to them. Children feel isolated and withdrawn from their close ones – it has a lifetime impact. Victims do not want to come forward because of social stigma as, in most cases, victims are highlighted publicly rather than the criminals. Some action plans were also suggested by them. When a child becomes a victim, we should restore their mental state by providing psychosocial counselling. We have to assure them that they are going to get legal aid support. Confidentiality should be maintained of victim’s identity rather than criminals should be identified in public and they should be given exemplary punishment. Moreover, we need to cooperate and support them to move forward in life.

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign and concluding session

The plenary session was followed by a short introduction of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights presented by Prof. Ishrat Shamim and participants were informed that the campaign was launched in July last year and a brief was published for wide dissemination along with badges. We used Red Heart as a symbol with the hope that, if we put our hearts together, we can save children. Moreover, the hashtag #SaveFACE4Children was developed to maximise the visibility of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights. Many parents showed their interest to share and carry forward the Red Heart Campaign messages among their group members.

6th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Grassroots Level CBOs

The 6th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with grassroots level CBOs took place at the CWCS Conference Room on 13th March 2023 from 2:00pm-5:00pm. About 30 participants of grassroots NGOs and CBOs from 25 different districts attended the meeting.

Introductory session

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS, chaired the meeting and welcomed the participants and guests Participants gave a brief introduction and shared their experiences especially on various forms of abuse and exploitation being faced by children at the grassroots level and also the child trafficking situation.

Speech of Guest Speakers

The guest speaker Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, has joined the meeting virtually and briefly discussed about the main objectives, strategies and solutions which are the focus of HEROES’s project: Prevention, Investigation and Victim Assistance.

She added, HEROES aims at developing technologies for improved prevention and investigation of trafficking in human beings, assistance services to victims of such criminal acts and sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Moreover, she mentioned about HEROES Consortium in details. She believes, the HEROES project will develop relevant contributions to all the challenges and will establish new innovative strategies to develop in the near future.

Jiniya Afroze, Field Coordinator, Terre des Hommes Switzerland – Dhaka and Kurigram, thanked CWCS for inviting her and appreciated our Red Heart Campaign. She informed about TDH work on the issue of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Advocate Farida Yeasmin, Executive Committee Member, CWCS, highlighted the awareness activities of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights. She suggested that CBOs that are working at grassroots level in various districts can aware young children that they should not share their chat, photos or videos on online platform.

Wahida Banu, Executive Director, Aparajeyo Bangladesh, gave an overview of the situation of child exploitation and trafficking in Bangladesh and shared her field level experience of working with street children who are sexually abused and exploited in the streets by strangers, musclemen and sometimes police.

Breakout session to promote child rights

After the presentations by speakers, there were breakout session into the following 3 groups to discuss Challenges regarding Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking Issues and put Forward Action Plans.

Group A discussed on the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and identified poverty, lack of education opportunities, superstition and safety measures at the grassroots level. They suggested area-wide meetings, employment opportunities, inclusion of these issues in the curriculum, need for administrative support, social media campaign and awareness programs in educational institutions.

Group B discussed on Access to Child Protection for Victims and suggested meeting with NGO social workers, awareness about the 109 hotline, ensuring accountability as per government rules, parent and family campaign, awareness about women and children with disability desk and grassroots media campaigns.

Group C discussed on Reintegration of Child Victims. The participants suggested psychological counselling and healthcare services to be provided, child friendly shelters to be established, and support services to be enhanced for reintegration of child victims.

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign and concluding session

The groups presented their deliberations in the plenary session followed by a brief introduction of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights and participants were requested to join the movement #SaveFACE4Children. Many grassroots CBOs became members of the Red Heart Campaign Network and showed their interest to share and carry forward the Red Heart Campaign messages among their group members and beneficiaries.

7th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Government Offials

Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS) organized the 7^th Stakeholder Meetings to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused and Exploited Children with Government Officials on 19 May 2024 at the Conference Room, Department of Women Affairs, Dhaka. The meeting was attended by 22 government officials of Department of Women Affairs, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Government of Bangladesh who are closely involved with providing services to women and children who are victims of gender based violence.

Introductory session

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President of the Centre welcomed the participants. We are one of the consortium partner in Novel Strategies to Fight Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking Crimes and Protect their Victims – HEROES project which is funded by the European Commission (EC) Brussels and managed by Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). It is being implemented by 24 consortium partners from Europe, Latin America and Bangladesh. In this context, we have organized 6 Stakeholder Meetings to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with key stakeholders at Dhaka to promote child rights. This is the 7^th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights with officials of the Department of Women Affairs (DWA), Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA), Government of Bangladesh.

Participants were requested to introduce themselves and narrate their key activities at the department of women affairs in promoting women and child rights. It was followed by speeches of the Guest Speakers namely Consortium lead from Madrid and HEROES Europe Program Manager, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC).

Speech of Guest Speakers

Prevention includes: Measures to reduce THB and CSA/CSE crimes; Reduce the offer of risky/fake/dangerous services provided to victims; and Reduce the risk of (re-)offending. Investigation includes: Analyse possible involvement of organised crime groups; Develop new approaches to investigate THB and CSA/CSE crimes; Provide means to detect, investigate and bring down P2P networks; and Address new threats of child abuse. Victim Assistance includes: Develop measures to ensure adequate victims’ protection and assistance; and to develop new approaches to mitigate the impact on victims of THB and CSA/CSE and to reduce re-victimisation in the short and long term.

Zoe Colpaert, HEROES Europe Program Manager, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), Alexandria, VA 22214 USA presented the Global Fight against Online Child Exploitation. She elaborated on the activities of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) with headquarters in the United States and regional representation in 10 countries. Moreover, they work in more than 120 countries to identify gaps in national and international capacities in the prevention, care and investigation of sexual abuse and exploitation and missing children and offer support to governments, decision makers, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, industry and civil society to reduce the gaps. She highlighted that 1/3 of all internet users today are children. She shared the global reported cases of Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) in 2023. Of these, 92% were assessed as containing ‘self-generated’ imagery and 55% of these reports showed 7-10 years old children. In 2023, 32 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation were made to National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) CyberTipline from nearly every country in the world. Bangladesh reported highest number of cases nearly 2,491,368 compared to United States, Thailand, France and other countries.

ICMEC has worked with the IWF to provide reporting mechanism to 97 countries who do not have access to a national CSAM reporting portal or hotline. ICMEC also has research publication entitled Child Sexual Abuse Material: Model Legislation and Global Review where they have reviewed national legislation on and around CSAM in 196 countries including Bangladesh. In Bangladesh’s legislative battle against CSAM, ICMEC publication revealed that Bangladesh has legislation specific regarding CSAM; defined Child Sexual Abuse Material; Technology Facilitated CSAM Offenses; Simple Possession whereas there is no legislation regarding Internet Service Providers (ISP) reporting.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President of Centre for Women and Children Studies highlighted that child sexual abuse and exploitation are issues of grave concern. However, it is underreported due to its clandestine nature and being associated with shame and social stigma. We are leading the task on Child rights promotion and protection: awareness-raising, education and information. In this context, we had launched the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children on 30 July 2022

Campaign’s mission is committed to promote child rights and protect children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking both offline and online. Campaign’s vision is to have a world free from child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking where children can grow up happy, healthy and safe. Subsequently, the Red Heart Campaign Network was formed to enhance the messages of the campaign and participants were invited to join the network. Presently there are 169 members from home and abroad. We have also developed the hashtag #SaveFACE4Children to maximize the visibility of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights. We can use the national helpline 1098 or 999 that can act as the key medium to report the criminal activities against children for legal actions to be address by the responsible law enforcing agencies.

Chief Guest Ms. Keya Khan, Director General of the Department of Women Affairs thanked CWCS for organizing a fruitful and informative meeting with her department officials. She discussed on the various forms of viol.ence against women and children and their adverse impact on the lives of the victims. She focused on the current trends of online child exploitation in Bangladesh and opined that the hotline number can support a victim effectively although prior assistance or awareness are missing. She suggested to strengthen the law enforcement and act immediately to any incident regarding gender based violence on women, adolescents and children. She emphasized on awareness raising

especially among children on how they should communicate with an unknown person. We should first prioritize the online safety of the children. At the same time, parents should be careful regarding their children and about their friends.

Special Guest Ms. Saleha Binte Siraj, Additional Director, Department of Women Affairs (DWA) shared some of the initiatives of the department in details that are relevant and in line with the objective of HEROES project. She mentioned about the helpline number – 109 of DWA which is maintained to support women and children and also their families who have faced gender based violence. Moreover, the “JOY app” is being developed to support women and child victims of violence. The main focus of this app is to provide primary support such as service information, situational knowledge and steps to be taken by victims of violence. Through this app, victims can communicate with the support service providers that they need and also they can report the incident for future support.

She also shared some of their activities related to support services to women, adolescent and children. However, children should have to be more cautious in sharing their information and photos with friends in social media as well as about their friends’ attitude and intention.

Open Discussion on Challenges & Way Forward to Promote Child Rights

In the Open Discussion session, participants were requested to discuss and focus on Challenges to Address Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and put forward recommendations/suggestions to reduce and eliminate such crimes against children and protect the victims. Challenges identified by the participants were mainly social, cultural, social media platforms and technical.

Social and cultural challenges

These are gender discrimination, lack to eliminate gender discrimination, bullying and other forms of violence by individuals, society and country and aggressive behavior. Children are harassed by friends, association of cousins with girl children in the guise of play, love trap, physical relationship; capitalizing on images of sexual relations and perpetuating physical relations with girls. There is declining family values and fathers are not involved in protecting his children, children of working mothers are kept at home alone or with maids. Moreover there is lack of publicity, campaigns and proper education.

Challenges in social media platforms

These are online child sexual abuse and exploitation in social media platforms, there is lack of raising awareness regarding children’s use of social media, lack of technical knowledge, absence of awareness regarding video clips being misused in the name of digitalization. There is no age bar for children’s use of mobile phones and laptops. Moreover, mobile addiction especially children’s addiction to mobile phones are keeping them away from being social and there is no adequate law to protect children from cyber harassment, free access to porn sites etc.

Way Forward to Promote Child Rights :

Social issues

Parental guidance

Parents should not give children devices and gadgets unless it is necessary and only to children for a specified period.
Children should be allowed to use button mobiles instead of android sets when they are left alone by their parents.
Access to social media for children should be age-appropriate.
Use of gadgets by children and teenagers should be controlled according to their age, such as warnings about who will use the gadget when it is sold.
Parents should take special care regarding the use of mobile phones by their girl children.
Parents should inform children about which age is appropriate to use social media.
Children should not use mobile phones extensively because it creates illness, anger, impatience, aggressiveness among children.
Religious values and norms should be practiced within the family.
A guideline can be formulated for guardians regarding children's use of mobiles and how to save children from abuse and exploitation.
Parents should spend quality time with children, build good relationships, values should be awakened and create awareness about child sexual abuse which should start from the family.
Working mothers should be more careful about the health of their girl children, they should take care of their daughter’s upbringing so that girls can be bold to protest against any type of discrimination and encouraged to solve various problems.
Girls should be able to talk to their mothers about their problems easily and frankly.
Working parents need to be motivated to buy books and toys for their children instead of mobile phones and try to give quality time to children.

Awareness raising & training

Creating mass awareness and campaigns should be taken in restricting the use of smart mobile phones by girls through radio, television, newspapers and various social media.
Issue of children's safety should be prioritized by all government and private agencies.
Awareness should be created for acquiring technical knowledge on the use of mobile phones and gadgets.
Training is one of the most important measures to take in order to avoid harassment, abuse and exploitation of children along with the human resource department specialist to work on developing training sessions to specifically address these issues.

Curriculum development

Technical issues

Policy and Legal changes

Coordination

Concluding session

At the concluding remarks session, Prof. Shamim invited participants to join the movement and become Red Heart Campaign Network members. She also requested the participants to convoy the messages related to promote child rights of sexually abused, exploited and trafficked children to their colleagues, friends and family members.

She added a few suggestions such as, practicing passphrase in the family members; not to share single photos with unknown persons and also to be careful about friends; taking extra precaution while traveling alone on metro rails, buses, trains and other transport. Relevant laws should be more focused on immediate support, protection of victims and also their family members. She also mentioned that children along with the guardians will have to be careful about fraudulent approaches both online and offline by the perpetrators offer of fake proposals like, friendship, making media star, monetize on own photos, etc.

The meeting concluded with vote of thanks to all the participants for their valuable feedbacks and effective participation by Prof. Nusrat Sultana, Treasurer of the Centre. She appreciated the active participation of the government officials and is hopeful about future activities to promote child rights to be jointly taken with the collaboration of the Department of Women Affairs.

9th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Lawyers

The 9^th Stakeholder Meetings to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused and Exploited Children with lawyers was organised on 31 August 2024 at CWCS Conference room, Dhaka. The meeting was attended by 18 lawyers who are working as advocates in Supreme Court and Dhaka Judge Court at Dhaka on children related issues and providing legal services to child victims

Introductory session

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President of the Centre welcomed the participants and highlighted that child sexual abuse and exploitation are issues of grave concern. However, it is underreported due to its clandestine nature and being associated with shame and social stigma. CWCS is one of the consortium partner in Novel Strategies to Fight Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking Crimes and Protect their Victims – HEROES project which is funded by the European Commission (EC) Brussels and managed by Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). It is being implemented by 24 consortium partners from Europe, Latin America and Bangladesh.

CWCS is one of the consortium partners leading the task on Child rights promotion and protection: awareness-raising, education and information. In this context, we had launched the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children on 30 July 2022 and subsequently, we have initiative the Red Heart Campaign Network which presently has 169 members from home and abroad. We have also developed the hashtag #SaveFACE4Children to maximize the visibility of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights.

We have organized 8 Stakeholder Meetings to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with INGOs, NGOs, young men and women, university students and faculty members, social workers, parents, grassroots level CBOs, government officials and media personnel at Dhaka to carry forward the message of the campaign. This is the 9^th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights with Lawyers.

Prof. Shamim emphasized that child victim protection serves as a critical means of preventing further exploitation and victimization, including the risk of re-trafficking. It is also intimately tied to a trafficking victim’s access to justice, as well as to perpetrators being brought to justice. Here lies the importance of the effective role of lawyers in providing justice to child victims and to act towards children in a victim-friendly manner.

Participants introduced themselves and gave a short brief of their work related to crimes against children, especially child exploitation and trafficking

It was followed by speeches by Guest Speakers from abroad namely Brief Overview of HEROES project and Online Child Exploitation: Global Perspective.

Speech of Guest Speakers

Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain gave a Brief overview of HEROES project and introduced the consortium partners from European countries, Latin America and Bangladesh. She briefly discuss about the HEROES objectives regarding prevention, investigation and victim assistance. Prevention includes: Measures to reduce THB and CSA/CSE crimes; Reduce the offer of risky/fake/dangerous services provided to victims; and Reduce the risk of (re-)offending. Investigation includes:

Analyse possible involvement of organised crime groups; Develop new approaches to investigate THB and CSA/CSE crimes; Provide means to detect, investigate and bring down P2P networks; and Address new threats of child abuse. Victim Assistance includes: Develop measures to ensure adequate victims’ protection and assistance; and to Develop new approaches to mitigate the impact on victims of THB and CSA/CSE and to reduce re-victimisation in the short and long term.

However, they work in more than 120 countries to identify gaps in national and international capacities in the prevention, care and investigation of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and missing children and offer support to governments, decision makers, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, industry and civil society to reduce the gaps. She highlighted that 1/3 of all internet users today are children. She shared the global reported cases of Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) in 2023. Of these, 92% were assessed as containing ‘self-generated’ imagery and 55% of these reports showed 7-10 years old children.

In 2023, 32 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation were made to National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) CyberTipline from nearly every country in the world. Bangladesh reported highest number of cases nearly 2,491,368 compared to United States, Thailand, France and other countries.

ICMEC offers different online live and in-person trainings, as well as e-learning on demand for a range of stakeholders namely law enforcement and first responders, lawyers, prosecutors and judges, educators, medical professionals, media, etc. There are also hotlines that receive reports of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) and work to get them removed from the internet. The main goal of these hotlines are to provide a national reporting mechanism, coupled with prevention, awareness raising and multi-stakeholder initiatives around CSAM. She shared the reporting portals such as web pages through which to report CSAM received by the IWF Hotline (UK) and informed ICMEC has worked with the IWF to provide reporting mechanism to 97 countries who do not have access to a national CSAM reporting portal or hotline. Also has research publication entitled Child Sexual Abuse Material: Model Legislation & Global Review where they have reviewed national legislation on and around CSAM in 196 countries including Bangladesh. In Bangladesh’s legislative battle against CSAM, ICMEC publication revealed that Bangladesh has legislation specific to CSAM; Child Sexual Abuse Material has been defined; Technology Facilitated CSAM Offenses; Simple Possession whereas there is no legislation regarding Internet Service Providers (ISP) reporting.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, presented a short presentation of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked and participants were invited to join our movement and become Red Heart Campaign Network members. She elaborated on the Red Heart Campaign’s mission which is committed to promote child rights and protect children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. The vision is to have a world free from child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking where children can grow up happy, healthy and safe.

Group work and presentations

In the Open Discussion session, participants were divided into two groups to discuss and focus on Challenges to Address Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and Put Forward Looking strategies to reduce and eliminate such crimes against children and protect the victims.

Group A discussed on Challenges to Address Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and to Put Forward Looking strategies. Some of the challenges identified by lawyers were: lack of awareness among victims; lack of information and knowledge regarding their rights and specifying victim’s age; facing social insecurity to report such incidences; publicity and social stigma; bias of the media in reporting such cases; negligence of the police to file cases and take prompt action; no counselling service being provided at the police station; lack of police training; lack of awareness and care about forensic report; ignorance about law and court trials; less confidence on the existing justice system; bias among the Public Prosecutors and brokers regarding sensitive cases of child abuse and exploitation; non-existence of camera trials whenever needed. In addition, victim want to remain in the family’s safe custody. Moreover, victims and their family members refrain from taking further legal action for lack of economic and social safety or when there are threats from perpetrators. In such cases, victims compromise with the accused person outside the court and try to resolve the case by mutual understanding.

With regard to the above challenges, the lawyers provided valuable forward looking strategies. Some of these were: building social awareness; family education and awareness; state to ensure good governance; courts are to be facilitated so that justice could easily be ensured within the span of short time; parents, especially mothers are to be directed not to give android mobile phone to their children; instead of android mobile phone, playground could be arranged for sports and outdoor activities for children.

Group B discussed on Challenges to Address Child Trafficking and to Put Forward Looking strategies. Some of the challenges identified by lawyers were: law enforcing agencies reluctance to have cognizance of the cases; in accordance with section 61 (1) of The Child Act 2013, a board necessary to monitor and oversee the cases was to be formed which have not been executed; use of mobile phone devices; broken family where there is separation of parents; intensity of poverty compel parents who are being frustrated to send their children to work in the elite families; laws are not properly implemented and moreover perpetrators are favoured by political leaders.

With regard to the above challenges, the lawyers provided valuable forward looking strategies. Some of these were: creating awareness among the family members and children about sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking from secondary school level; school authority should arrange an extra awareness class in school once in a week; and also students should get proper orientation about physical sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking; parents should be more careful about their children as to how they are using their mobile devices; parents should install parenting control apps to their children’s devices; parents should train their children how to identify good friends and in this regards, parents should overlook their children’s friend circles.

Concluding session

At the Concluding session, Prof. Shamim invited participants to join the movement and become Red Heart Campaign Network members. All the lawyers showed their interest to convey the messages of the campaign among their colleagues. Moreover they joined our campaign enthusiastically and became members of the network to actively participate in our future activities. Some of the senior advocates also suggested to prepare a list of recommendations for amendments in the laws regarding child rights and their protection to be presented to the relevant law ministry for their prompt action in this regard.

9th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Lawyers

Introductory session

Participants introduced themselves and gave a short brief of their work related to crimes against children, especially child exploitation and trafficking

It was followed by speeches by Guest Speakers from abroad namely Brief Overview of HEROES project and Online Child Exploitation: Global Perspective.

Speech of Guest Speakers

Group work and presentations

Concluding session

10th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Police Officials

The 10^th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Police Officials was organized on 24 September 2024 at the Conference Room, Detective Training School, Bangladesh Police, CID, Dhaka. The meeting was attended by 22 police officials who are working in different units of CID police namely cyber police centre, central crime, serious crime which includes human trafficking, cyber investigation and operations, detective training school etc. who are providing investigation and legal services to child victims of online and offline abuse, exploitation and trafficking.

Introductory session

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President of the Centre welcomed the participants and informed that CWCS is one of the consortium partner in Novel Strategies to Fight Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking Crimes and Protect their Victims – HEROES project which is funded by the European Commission (EC) Brussels and managed by Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). It is being implemented by 24 consortium partners from Europe, Latin America and Bangladesh.

CWCS is one of the consortium partners leading the task on Child rights promotion and protection: awareness-raising, education and information. In this context, we had launched the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children on 30 July 2022.

Speech of Chief Guest

Chief Guest Mr. Gazi Jashim Uddin DIG (HR & Administration), Bangladesh Police, CID Headquarters was very positive when he said that we have to come out from the attitude of neglecting those whom to provide services. We have to protect children from abuse and exploitation and at the same time provide support to their families so that they can protect their children.

The slum areas of Dhaka city like Kuril, Jatrabari, Begunbari, Mirpur, are very vulnerable to children where we will find that many children are facing abuse and exploitation in their families and communities. We need to bring them under the various government support services. Government have established “Shishu Poribar” which are mainly orphanages. They allocate the budgets which generally are for the street children and orphans.

Now is the time to discuss these issues and on our possible steps, guidelines and opinions regarding child rights and their protection in society. Violence against children related incidents mostly remain unreported due to social stigmatization. In many cases, police cannot freely approach the child victims or their families because they do not want to get involved in legal proceedings. Moreover, there is the tendency in our society to avoid policemen. Peoples do not want to approach police officials regarding criminal or unlawful incidents and do not want to help police willingly in investigation.

He frankly agreed that it is not possible to maintain 100% integrity or honesty on the part of the Officer-In-Charges (OCs) of the police stations. If any warrant is issued from the court, there are province to crock the assets of fugitive accused person by the police. Police officers will have to treat all citizens equally and there should be no differentiation between the rich and poor while giving services.

We will have to keep it in mind that there are many children in bounded labour who have no scope to escape from the bonded situation. There are hardly any scope to protest for any unlawful incidents which may affect these children. As a result, they face abuse, torture, exploitation, trafficking etc. and moreover, such incidents are not reported. However, we think that police will have to give top priority to those cases when these are reported. Lastly, the Chief Guest hoped that this programme will be helpful for the police officials as it will enrich their knowledge and understanding regarding child rights and their protection.

Speech by the Chair

Chair Mst. Sidika Begum thanked the Chief Guest, Centre for Women and Children Studies as organizer, Detective Training School administration and CID police officials. She mentioned that there were low resource allocation in police stations for the last 20 years and it is still continuing in the present. It clearly indicates that there are actually no improvement of resource management in police stations. Without proper resource allocation, providing services to the public is hard.

There are clear indication of punishment in the law regarding child abuse and exploitation. Moreover, strict implementation of the existing law is the demand of society. Still in some cases, we think that more strict punishment will have to be applied to set an example. We have to address the issues faced by police, field level offenses and crimes. For that, the policing system will have to be more categorized and more focused. Considering the capacity, capability and expertise, duty of police officials will have to be specific. Moreover, police officials will have to be honest in providing services.

It was followed by speeches by Guest Speakers from abroad namely Brief Overview of HEROES project and Online Child Exploitation: Global Perspective.

Speeches of Guest Speakers

Zoe Colpaert, HEROES, Europe Program Manager, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), Alexandria, VA 22214 USA presented the Global Fight against Online Child Exploitation presented the Global Fight against Online Child Exploitation. She elaborated on the activities of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) with headquarters in the United States and regional representation in 10 countries. However, they work in more than 120 countries to identify gaps in national and international capacities in the prevention, care and investigation of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and missing children and offer support to governments, decision makers, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, industry and civil society to reduce the gaps. She highlighted that 1/3 of all internet users today are children. She shared the global reported cases of Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) in 2023. Of these, 92% were assessed as containing ‘self-generated’ imagery and 55% of these reports showed 7-10 years old children. In 2023, 32 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation were made to National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) CyberTipline from nearly every country in the world. Bangladesh reported highest number of cases nearly 2,491,368 compared to United States, Thailand, France and other countries.

She shared the reporting portals such as web pages through which to report CSAM received by the IWF Hotline (UK) and informed ICMEC has worked with the IWF to provide reporting mechanism to 97 countries who do not have access to a national CSAM reporting portal or hotline. Also has research publication entitled Child Sexual Abuse Material: Model Legislation & Global Review where they have reviewed national legislation on and around CSAM in 196 countries including Bangladesh. In Bangladesh’s legislative battle against CSAM, ICMEC publication revealed that Bangladesh has legislation specific to CSAM; Child Sexual Abuse Material has been defined; Technology Facilitated CSAM Offenses; Simple Possession whereas there is no legislation regarding Internet Service Providers (ISP) reporting.

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign

Breakout session to promote child rights

In the breakout session, police participants individually as well as in smaller groups discussed on the various Challenges to Address Child Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking and Put Forward Looking strategies to reduce and eliminate such crimes against children and protect the victims and also the role of the police.

Red Heart Campaign Meetings

We successfully organised 3 meetings at Dhaka mostly at CWCS Conference room with the active participation of 20-25 persons in each, from different stakeholder groups namely INGOs, NGOs, young men and women, university students and faculty members, social workers, parents and CBOs working in different districts throughout Bangladesh.

Red Heart Campaign Network: To make the campaign global, we launched the Red Heart Campaign Network on 1 February 2023 in the 2nd meeting and invited child rights activists, organisations and key stakeholders to be members of the network. As of April 2023, we have 69 network members from various parts of Bangladesh as well as from abroad. In this regard, we have shared our first Red Heart Campaign Network Bulletin online for short introduction and wider dissemination of our activities.

1st Red Heart Campaign Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with women rights organisation working at grassroots level

The Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS) organized the first Red Heart Campaign meeting with 16 women rights organizations working at grassroots level on 11 August 2022 at CWCS Conference room.

Many of the women organizations offered to organize campaign meetings with community people at their working areas. They invited Centre for Women and Children Studies to work with them.

2nd Red Heart Campaign Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with child rights activists, social workers and NGO representatives

The 2nd Red Heart Campaign Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children was organised with Aparajeyo Bangladesh at their Conference Room on 1 February 2023 from 4:00pm-5:00pm. About 52 child rights activists, social workers and NGO representatives attended.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS, chaired the meeting and welcomed the participants and guests.

Speech of Guest Speakers

Jesus A. Alonso-Lopez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, briefly discussed about the main objectives of HEROES’s project which aimed at prevention, investigation and victim assistance.

Zoé Colpaert, HEROES/Europe Program Manager, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), USA (based in the UK), presented the Global fight against online child exploitation and highlighted global challenges, technology solutions such as hotlines and portals; and the partnership work of ICMEC in capacity building training and e-learning; and research on child sexual abuse material.

Bramwell Roy, Program Manager for India at ICMEC, discussed the global challenges and the present situation of abused children. He informed that the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) works on the exploitation of children and produces awareness raising materials on child sexual abuse. Their work focuses on children exploited in the sex industry, child kidnapping, children being abused through online grooming, etc. They organise multi-dimensional roundtable meetings with various groups of people, established a child-friendly police unit and provided various types of training to different stakeholders like police, public prosecutors so that they are sensitive towards women and children.

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign and concluding session

The plenary session was followed by a short introduction of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights presented by Prof. Ishrat Shamim which was launched on 30 July 2022 and a brief was published for wide dissemination along with badges. Prof. Ishrat Shamim launched the Red Heart Campaign Network for more active participation of key stakeholders round the globe.

Many child rights activists, social workers and NGO representatives became members of the Red Heart Campaign Network and showed their interest to share and carry forward the Red Heart Campaign messages among their community and beneficiaries. The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks.

3rd Red Heart Campaign Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with youth groups

The 3rd Red Heart Campaign Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children was organised at CWCS premises on 11 February 2023 from 1:00pm-5:00pm. About 85 participants attended the meeting mainly from the members of Youth for Change Bangladesh and representatives from selected government ministry, former foreign minister, international organisations, academicians, gender specialists, advocate, police official, NGOs and media personnel.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS, chaired the meeting and welcomed the participants and guests. She gave a short introduction of the guest speakers who joined the meeting virtually. Under the HEROES project, the Centre for Women and Children Studies was given the task to promote child rights, especially of children who are exploited and trafficked.

There were 3 guest speakers: Jesus A. Alonse-Lopez, Analysis, Security and Systems Group (GASS) Department of Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Faculty of Informatics, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain; Bramwell Roy, Program Manager of ICMEC India; and Saima Akhter Dipty, Head of Influence, Youth for Change Bangladesh. Two of the Guest Speakers from Madrid and India joined the meeting virtually and presented their valuable speeches.

Speech of Guest Speakers

Jesús A. Alonso-Lopez, of Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, briefly discussed about the main objectives of HEROES’s project aimed at prevention – Making the world safer for children by eradicating child abduction, sexual abuse and exploitation and how to prevent it; investigation – Investigating problems, rooting out and solving everything and the most important thing is Victim assistance – how to give protection. Some solutions that have been suggested by Jesús also include training various stakeholders, law enforcement agencies and civil society. He added information on how the training tools has been developed and hopeful that these tools will be more developed in the near future by consultants to take it at the global level. They have specialised units like the Model Framework and Creation of a Specialized Online Child Sexual Exploitation Unit.

Bramwell Roy, Program Manager for India at ICMEC, discussed the global challenge and the present situation of abused children. He informed that the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) works on the exploitation of children and produces awareness raising materials on child sexual abuse. Their work focuses on children exploited in the sex industry, kidnapping of children, children being abused through online grooming, etc., organising multi-dimensional roundtable meetings with various groups of people, establishing a child-friendly police unit and provided various types of training to different stakeholders like police, public prosecutors so that they are sensitive towards women and children.

Saima Akhter Dipty, Head of Influence, Youth for Change Bangladesh, gave a presentation on some of the Red Heart Campaign strategies that can be taken such as: awareness building; children and youth engagement; community engagement; collaboration and networking; and media coverage. She discussed about the targets to reach out for Red Heart Campaign such as: children and youth engagement which would cover children, youths, child forums, youth clubs, youth-led organizations; community engagement will include parents, teachers, local leaders, community people; collaboration and networks will include CSOs, social workers, teachers, researchers, police officials; and media coverage will include print and electronic media. She informed that Youth for Change Bangladesh has 600+ volunteers across Bangladesh and they work on gender based violence issues, child marriage, child trafficking and child exploitation. They believe that every person is an individual stakeholder and each of them has a responsibility to work on these child protection issues.

Given below the discussion points from the members of the Youth for Change:

Shiuly: We have to set a motive before establishing something so that we can act or work accordingly. In this regard, we would like to know the objective of CWCS to the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights.
Md. Sohel Ahmed: Usually everyone and every organisation work for men, women and children. Why working for third-gender is not that popular yet? What can we do for them? He added, when a boy takes a stand to support a girl, a girl should be courageous and supportive also. She should protest also.
Sadia Islam: We know about child and women abuses. We also know which touch is good and which one is bad. But we cannot share these due to the fear of back lash from our community and society at large. Our family is the first one to stop us from sharing such incidents. As such, families should be more supportive than others, especially when the child is saying the truth and they want that family members should honour that what they are saying are right.
Md. Zahidul Islam Ratul: When a child or youth stand up against the wrong doings of adults, the senior citizens stop them and address them as ‘choto manush’ (literally means younger people)
Khadiza: My cousin touched me in a wrong way. I shared this with my mom but she stopped me from sharing it with other people. She warned me not to share it with anyone. I was extremely frustrated and disappointed. Why did she stop me? Why did she not protest? As a mother, as a family member, I feel that she should protest but why did she not? Can we not alert our families first? Can our families be more supportive?

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign and concluding session

The plenary session was followed by a short introduction of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights presented by Prof. Ishrat Shamim and she informed that the campaign was launched on 30 July 2022 and a brief was published for wide dissemination along with badges. Many youths showed their interest to share and carry forward the Red Heart Campaign messages among their friend circle and their community. The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks.

Webinar: One Year Celebration of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children
Monday, 31 July 2023

Centre for Women and Children Studies (CWCS) organized a Webinar to celebrate the One Year of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children on 31 July 2023 from 4:00pm-6:00pm. About 37 participants attended the Webinar from government officials, representatives from international organizations, national NGOs, grassroots CBOs, HEROES consortium partners and our Red Heart Campaign Network members.
CWCS is leading the task on Child rights promotion and protection: awareness-raising, education and information. The task envision that the most effective way for promoting and protection of child rights is by raising awareness, educating and engaging civil society, teachers, parents, children and youth groups, social workers, local leaders, police officials, media groups, grassroots NGOs and CBOs.

In this regard, we launched the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused and Exploited Children on 30 July 2022 and called upon all to join our movement: Let us put our hearts together to save sexually abused and exploited children.

Prof. Ishrat Shamim, President, CWCS welcomed the participants and guests. There are 3 guest speakers namely Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco, Senior Researcher in GASS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid Spain, Dr. Kamal Uddin Ahmed, Chairman, National Human Rights Commission Bangladesh and Bramwell Roy, Country Director, India, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC).

Prof. Ishrat Shamim gave a short presentation of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights which was launched on 30 July 2022, with the mission to protect children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking and its vision to have a world where children can grow up happy, healthy and safe. We developed the hashtag #SaveFACE4Children to maximize the visibility of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights.

We also launched the Red Heart Campaign Network on 1 February 2023 to carry forward the key message: Let us put our heart together to save children from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking!

The main objective of the network is to make the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights more interactive and visible with the collaboration and participation of activists, researchers, social workers, youth groups, policy planners, media personnel, law enforcing agencies and other stakeholders. We like to invite both individuals and organizations who are interested to work with us to be members of the network from home and abroad. We can collaborate with each other through regular exchange and sharing of initiatives that we are taking to save children. We can learn from each other the changing scenario of child abuse and exploitation worldwide as well as of good practices. She informed that presently, CWCS have 80 Network Members and about 10 collaborative organizations.

Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco briefly discussed about the main objectives, strategies and solutions which are the focus of HEROES’s project: Prevention, Investigation and Victim Assistance. She added, HEROES aims at developing technologies for improved prevention and investigation of trafficking in human beings, assistance services to victims of such criminal acts and sexual abuse and exploitation of children. She believes, the HEROES project will develop relevant contributions to all the challenges and will establish new innovative strategies to develop in the near future.

Dr. Kamal Uddin Ahmed highlighted the government initiative for children to be safe online. He talked about the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Bangladesh police and that they have joined the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in December 2021 and have been conducting drives to save children from online abuse and exploitation. He elaborated on the global and Bangladesh legal frameworks and the National Plan of Action for Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking 2018-2022 where the responsibilities of all relevant stakeholders with timeframes are given.

However, he concluded that in spite of some government efforts in the realms of prevention, protection, rescue and rehabilitation and the adoption of a National Plan for Action against Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children including Trafficking in 2002, there is still insufficient progress addressing various manifestations of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

He suggested that there should be break through cultures of inertia, secrecy, and resistance to change; social and cultural harmful practices should be eliminated; patriarchal structures of society should be more child-friendly; create mass awareness; generate evidence on the prevalence of child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking and its various forms of manifestation; share learning from the community level upwards so that effective national strategies can be taken up to combat child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking; adequate legal and administrative framework are needed and proper enforcement of existing laws; eliminate the widespread corruption; increase coordination between border police and neighbouring countries. Moreover, appropriate interventions should be taken depending on different forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation such as psychosocial counselling, healthcare services, shelter facilities, reintegration into the family and community.

Bramwell Roy, Manager of ICMEC India discussed on global challenge and the present situation of abused children. He briefly discussed about the HEROES three pillars and ICMEC task which are: Prevention, Investigation and Victim Assistance. In prevention, ICMEC works towards analysis of THB and CSA/CSE prevention programs and online safety to support parents, cares and professionals. Investigation mainly focus on analysis of law enforcement response to Cyber tips/missing children reports, training curricula on recognizing, intervening and preventing THB and CSEA, training to use the technological tools developed in HEROES. Victim Assistance is mainly multidisciplinary team framework and training to child-serving professionals to recognize and respond to THB and CSA/CSE/OCSE.

There was open discussion where Red Heart Campaign Network members from various districts of Bangladesh shared about their main activities to combat crimes like child abuse, exploitation and trafficking. The Webinar concluded with a vote of thanks to all the participants and members of the Red Heart Campaign Network Members.

MULTI-SECTORAL REFERRAL SYSTEM FOR VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING, SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND THOSE IN VULNERABLE SITUATION IN SATKHIRA DISTRICT

The multi-sectoral referral system project was initiated from January 2014 and is ongoing with CWCS’s own contribution with the aim to address the issue of trafficking in a holistic way by providing healthcare, counselling, shelter, food, access to justice, integration with family members, and identifying victims/survivors for life skill training in Satkhira district.

Main objective

To improve an integrated health service oriented referral system with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), law enforcing agencies, and NGOs (duty bearers) for victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation and those in vulnerable situations (right holders) in Satkhira district, Bangladesh.

Project activities

Health services through the Information Health Booth and the specialized hotline services to address health risks and consequences of victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation and those in vulnerable situation. Victims are mostly from Satkhira district as well as from other districts who are recued in the bordering areas of Satkhira. About 434 victims were provided healthcare services at Information Health Booth (IHB) through referral system with government hospitals and NGO facilities during January 2014-December 2018.

Transit Shelter Home for victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation and those in vulnerable situation referred by police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), health service providers, government officials and other stakeholders: The survivors were provided with food, healthcare services, recreational facilities and made aware about the issues of trafficking and sexual exploitation and safe return to home. About 249 survivors of trafficking and sexual exploitation were provided shelter services at the transit shelter facility during January 2014-June 2018.

Providing counseling services at the Information Health Booth to victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation and those in vulnerable situation: 434 victims were provided counseling services at the Information Health Booth and 295 survivors received counseling at the CWCS Counseling Centre at Satkhira Sadar hospital during January 2014-December 2018.

Specialized hotline services

We have 2 specialized hotline numbers for victims, survivors and their families. About 2,288 mobile calls received and attended from victims, victims’ family members, former victims, school students, police and BGB officials, Counter Trafficking Committee (CTC) members, health service providers, Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) card holders, community people, NGOs, District Women Affairs Officer and Social Services Officer, Satkhira. Similarly 2,457 were outgoing calls from the Information Health Booth (IHB) and the Transit Shelter Homes of CWCS.

Ongoing projects

Empowerment of Returnee Women Migrants (ERWM)

Activities at a glance

At the grassroots level

At the national level

At the grassroots level

Awareness raising meeting

Door-to-door campaign

Group formation of returnee women migrants

Group meetings

Capacity development training

Workshop on leadership and women empowerment

Entrepreneurship training

Sewing training

Psychosocial counselling

Family counselling

Group counselling

Medical support

Women Economic Empowerment (WEE)

Motivational and information sharing meetings with Union Parishad Chairmen and Members

The Union Parishad Chairmen and Members shared the following issues

At the national level

Launching the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) with Women Rights Organizations working on migration issues.

Objectives of the Alliance

Information sharing meeting with the Alliance for Women Migrant Voices (AWMV) members

Members came up with the following recommendations:

National level media advocacy

Given below the specific recommendations:

Dialogue with Government and Non-Government service providers for Safe Migration and Reintegration of Returnee Women Migrants

National Level Consultation on Policy Framework Regarding Reintegration of Returnee Women Migrants

International Day Celebrations

The ERWM programme celebrated the various international days, especially those related with women rights towards achieving equality and women’s empowerment:

International Day of Girl Child

International Women's Day

International May Day

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (Orange Day)

Begum Rokeya Day

Human Rights Day

International Migrants Day

Novel Strategies to Fight Child Sexual Exploitationand Human Trafficking Crimes and Protect their Victims - HEROES

HEROES project activities

Kick-off meeting

1st Consortium meeting at Madrid, Spain

Awareness raising Campaign

Launching of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights

Contributing in other Work Packages (WPs)

Developing and Publishing IEC Materials

Activities on Online Social Platforms

Stakeholder Meetings

5th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Parents

Introductory session

Speech of guest speaker

Breakout session to promote child rights

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign and concluding session

6th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Grassroots Level CBOs

Introductory session

Speech of Guest Speakers

Breakout session to promote child rights

Orientation of the Red Heart Campaign and concluding session

7th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Government Offials

Introductory session

Speech of Guest Speakers

Open Discussion on Challenges & Way Forward to Promote Child Rights

Social and cultural challenges

Challenges in social media platforms

Way Forward to Promote Child Rights :

Social issues

Parental guidance

Awareness raising & training

Curriculum development

Technical issues

Policy and Legal changes

Coordination

Concluding session

9th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Lawyers

Introductory session

Speech of Guest Speakers

Group work and presentations

Concluding session

9th Stakeholder Meeting to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children with Lawyers

Novel Strategies to Fight Child Sexual Exploitation
and Human Trafficking Crimes and Protect their Victims - HEROES

Webinar: One Year Celebration of the Red Heart Campaign to Promote Child Rights of Sexually Abused, Exploited and Trafficked Children
Monday, 31 July 2023