If you have been a victim of, or have witnessed an incident of domestic violence, call any of these numbers for emergency support.

Learn about and stand up to domestic violence

If any member of your family physically, emotionally, or verbally, abuses you or any other woman or child in your family, or withholds economic freedom from you or your family member, that constitutes domestic violence.

According to Section 3 of Bangladesh’s Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act 2010, these are punishable offences.

How can you tell if you’ve been a victim of domestic violence?

According to the law

pHYSICAL ABUSE

Physical abuse constitutes any act or behaviour that threatens the life, health, safety, or any part of the physique of the person who is harmed, or is likely to be harmed.

Sexual abuse

Sexual abuse includes sexual behavior that harms the victim’s dignity, honor, or reputation.

Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse includes the following:

verbal abuse, insults, contempt, intimidation or making statements that hurt the victim emotionally
teasing

interference with individual freedom i.e. interference with normal movement, communication or expression of personal wishes or opinions

Financial abuse

Financial abuse includes the following:

To deprive the aggrieved person of any financial privileges, assets or property in accordance with the law or custom or as directed by a court or appropriate authority, or to prevent them from exercising their legitimate right over it

Not providing daily necessities to the aggrieved person

Depriving the aggrieved person of a gift received at the time of marriage or any other gift or property received as a gift or withholding their legitimate right over it

Transferring any immovable or movable property owned by the aggrieved person without their permission or obstructing the exercise of their legitimate right over it

To deprive the aggrieved person of the right to use or possess all the resources or privileges due to family relations or to prevent them from exercising their legitimate right over them.

To learn more about financial abuse, visit: https://www.annuity.org/financial-literacy/financial-abuse/

Protect yourself from financial abuse by using these great resources from Annuity.org: https://www.annuity.org/financial-literacy/women/

In other words…

Physical abuse

When a person’s life, health, safety or any part of the body is damaged or is likely to be damaged and they are forced or incited to commit a criminal act.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

When a person is insulted or neglected or harassed, intimidated or denied personal liberty or expression.

SEXUAL ABUSE

When a person is forced to have sex with someone, and have suffered from a loss of dignity, honour, and reputation

MONETARY HARM

When a person is illegally deprived of financial benefits, assets, or property

How can you tell if you’ve become a victim of domestic violence?

Have any of the incidents described below happened to you, or have you ever found yourself in any one of these situations?

Watch out for these red flags!

Has any family member ever done any of these?

Embarrassing or putting you down
Looking at you or acting in ways that scare you
Controlling who you see, where you go, or what you do
Keeping you or discouraging you from seeing your friends or families
Taking your money or refusing to give you money for your expenses
Preventing you from making your own decisions
Telling you that you are a bad parent or threatening to harm or take away your children
Preventing you from working or attending school
Blaming you for the abuse, or acting like it is not really happening
Destroying your property or threatening to hurt or kill your pets
Intimidating you with guns, knives, or other weapons
Shoving, slapping, choking, or hitting you
Attempting to stop you from pressing charges
Threatening to commit suicide because of something you have done and having you be blamed for it
Threatening to hurt or kill you
Pressuring you to have sex when you don’t want to or do things sexually you’re not comfortable with
Pressuring you to use drugs or alcohol