Webinar Series on Gender-Based Violence Launched by Evolution360- Ally of UN Campaign and MJF
Evolution 360 a youth-led community organization established in 2016, is working to create a gender-equal world through different campaigns. Hence keeping in mind the occasion of 16 days of activism and the #WeCommit campaign by UN Women to combat sexual harassment at the workplace, Evolution360 a youth organization and ally of UN Women’s #WeCommit jointly with ManusherJonno Foundation is organizing a webinar in affiliation with We Empower, UN Women. On 8th December 2020, Episode 1 of this webinar series had conducted. The topic of Episode 1 was Combating Gender-Based Violence in Corporate World and Executing #WeCommit By UN Women.
In Episode 1 Anna Falth, Head of Secretariat of the Women’s Empowerment Principles, UN Women joined as the Chief Guest of the session.
In this live discussion, the panelists have highlighted the good practices of their companies regarding SDG 05 and talked about the condition of GBV in Bangladesh. Guest of honor ShaheenAnam, Executive Director, ManusherJonno Foundation, said, “Workplace should be gender friendly. To ensure this we need to make a strict policy in every corporate sector”. Besides she focused on the safety of women in their respective workplaces.
Panellist MalihaQuadir, Founder and Managing Director, Shohoz, focused on zero tolerance principles in the workplace if a woman faces sexual and mental harassment. According to her women should speak against the harassment that they personally faced. Highlighting this she said, “Encouraging women to speak up against the harassment is more important”
Another panelist Asif Ibrahim, Vice-Chairman, New Age Group of Industries and Director of BGMEA, said, “Mental well-being is too important for women worker”. According to him except for mental well-being workers cannot work properly. Especially when women being harassed sexually and mentally in their work their mental state gets damaged and its effects on their work. For this productivity of a sector in any company gets destroyed. Lastly TasniaAtique, Director, Ahmed Food Pvt. Ltd, emphasizes women empowerment. According to her, “A female can change lots of things. This is why we need to give them a gender-friendly and harassment-free workplace for our own sake”.
Chief guest Anna Falth, gave a deeper insight into the discussion and also highlight the advantages of the #WeCommit campaign and Women Empowerment Principles (WEP) to the audience. She said, “Self-development of women will reduce gender harassment. To make a woman self-developed we need to create a gender-friendly workplace”. Ultimately, she created a huge focus on a harassment-free workplace. The first episode of this webinar series was telecast live on Facebook and was moderated by Upoma Ahmad, Founder and President Evolution 360. Besides all members of Evolution 360, people from different parts of Bangladesh joined this live webinar.
