In Bangladesh, women suffer rape, beatings, acid attacks or even murder due to entrenched customs and attitudes which condone violence against women. But slowly this is beginning to change.

An estimated 200 women are murdered each year in Bangladesh when their families cannot pay their dowry¹ - money or property paid to their husbands when they marry. Many thousands more suffer daily beatings.

The centuries-old tradition of dowries has been illegal in Bangladesh for around 30-40 years. Despite this, it is still deeply ingrained in many communities, particularly in rural areas.

It is one of many such customs in Bangladesh which foster violence against women. About 47% of women in Bangladesh experience domestic violence², with little support from the judicial system. Around 50% of all murders of women are the result of domestic violence³.

In order to change the acceptability of violence against women in Bangladesh, we are working in partnership with Oxfam Great Britain and an alliance of community-based organisations on a campaign called "We Can End All Violence Against Women".

The campaign, which has been launched throughout South Asia, including Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, aims to make people aware through media coverage, rallies and door-to-door campaigns that domestic violence is unacceptable. It also involves recruiting volunteer "change-makers" who are committed to the cause and willing to mobilise others into action.

In the Dinajpur district of northern Bangladesh, we are working with Oxfam Great Britain to support local organisation Polli Sree to form community groups to raise awareness about domestic violence and change attitudes towards women.

So far, 550 groups have been formed in communities across the district, each comprising 15-20 members, both men and women.

"In the beginning when we went to the villages to talk about dowry, they wouldn't let us inside their houses. We had to stand outside and talk to people through the windows. Now, a couple of years later, they let us come inside," Polli Sree Director Shamim Ara explains.

"At the start people kept saying, 'If we don't give dowry, our daughters will not be married'. Then a marriage was arranged between the son of one of the group members and the daughter of a member of another group. There was no dowry in this marriage. People in the community could see that marriages without dowry are possible."

Shamim Ara says that challenging community attitudes about dowry has been difficult, but the message is finally starting to get through.

"We have done a lot of work to encourage marriages without dowry. We talk to community members and we give out plaques to families who refuse to give or take dowry," she says. "It is difficult to break such a strong tradition.

"We started this work in 1993. In 1997 there were three marriages without dowry in the community, in 1998 there were five marriages and in 2004 there were 13 marriages. In total we have had 104 marriages without dowry between 1997 and 2004. It is a great achievement."

Apart from marriage without dowry, Polli Sree also campaigns and raises awareness on issues such as marriage registration and husbands and wives eating meals together - two things which are rare in Bangladesh. It also holds orientation sessions for newlywed couples shortly after they marry, to start them thinking about these issues, and then runs follow-up sessions every three months.

"There is a lot of resistance to all these ideas," she says. "We carry on anyway because we do see change happening. It is slow and sometimes small, but it is still change."

Story based on material written by Oxfam's Jenny Enarsson.

Find out more about our work in Bangladesh.

¹ Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association
² United Nations Population Fund, 1999
³ International Women's Tribune Centre, 1999