Afghan Female Bikers Smash Stereotypes in Daykundi Show
New
Age Islam News Bureau
06 December 2020
• Afghan Female Bikers Smash Stereotypes in Daykundi Show
• Neera Tanden's Unremorseful Bullying Should Disqualify
Her From Biden's Cabinet
• How Expo Live Is Helping Low Income African Women
Escape The Rental Trap
• Around The World, Older Women Have Confronted
Fascists With Calm Authority
• UN Women Australia — Carrying The Heavy Load For
Women
• Recognizing Unpaid Care Work Will Reduce Violence
Against Women
• National Emergency Service 999 Prevents 3,685 Child
Marriages In 2020
Compiled By New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/afghan-female-bikers-smash-stereotypes/d/123676
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Afghan Female Bikers Smash Stereotypes in Daykundi
Show
By Mohammad Haroon Alim
06 Dec 2020
At least 10 #Female_motor_bikers from Shahristan,
Miramor, and Nili districts participated the show.
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An all-female motorcycle show was held Wednesday in
Nili, the capital of Daykundi province, on the occasion of the 16-day campaign
to end violence against women.
At least 10 Female motor bikers from Shahristan,
Miramor, and Nili districts participated the show.
Marzia Hamdard, head of provincial gender department,
told the press, “this play was organized by the provincial administration in
cooperation with Oxfam in support of girls who ride motorcycles.”
“By doing this, women in Daikundi said no to the
negative customs and traditions of the society and showed that they have the
best capacities.”
“Women have the right to access a better, safer, and
more open space and to participate in all matters”, Marzia added.
Meanwhile, female bikers welcomed the program and
called for motorcycling competitions.”
The girls also asked other families to allow their
daughters to join motorcycling sports.
Mohammad Dad, father to one of the female
participators, said that girls’ motorcycling is not a disgrace, families should
leave their daughters to ride a motorcycle like boys.
In recent years, women have been able to achieve
relative freedom through their ongoing struggles, but they still face unsavory
customs and traditional beliefs.
Experts believe that in order to improve the
livelihood of women and reduce violence, the government should undertake
programs to improve the economic situation and self-sufficiency of women and
increase the level of awareness in families.
https://www.khaama.com/female-bikers-smashed-stereotypes-in-dykundi-88687686/
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Neera Tanden's unremorseful bullying should disqualify
her from Biden's cabinet
Arwa Mahdawi
Sat 5 Dec 2020
Joe Biden nominated Neera Tanden to serve as director
of the Office of Management and Budget. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP
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Imagine this: a high-powered white man pushes a female
journalist after she asks a question he doesn’t like.
So why isn’t there more outrage about the fact Neera
Tanden, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the federal Office of Management and
Budget, once assaulted a journalist? In 2008 Tanden was a senior aide on
Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign and accompanied Clinton to what
she thought would be a softball interview. Faiz Shakir, then the chief editor
of ThinkProgress, asked Clinton about her support for the Iraq war. Tanden
didn’t appreciate this and, according to one witness, punched him in the chest.
“I didn’t slug him, I pushed him,” Tanden unapologetically clarified to the New
York Times last year. As if that somehow makes things better.
There has been a lot of controversy around Tanden’s
nomination. However, most of this has revolved around her tweets: the woman
really likes to tweet. Her social media activity appears to have caused more
upset and outrage than the fact she once pushed a journalist because he asked
her boss an insufficiently deferential question.
Why aren’t people more outraged? Well, because there’s
still an assumption that women can’t really hurt men, for one thing.
Particularly brown and Asian women, who are often stereotyped as meek, passive
and docile. If Tanden was a black woman who had punched a white man, I think the
reaction would have been very different. I think a lot of racist tropes about
Angry Black Women would have raised their head. Serena Williams, for example,
can’t hit a tennis ball without someone accusing her of being violent and
aggressive. And, of course, if it had been a white man pushing a brown woman,
liberals would be up in arms.
As it is, the punching incident is being treated as
something of a punchline and the real attention is on the Republican hypocrisy
around Tanden’s combative tweets. “We’ve had a president who has used his
Twitter account like a battering ram,” Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic
senator pointed out on MSNBC. “Now all of a sudden it’s a disqualification for
someone to serve in the cabinet that engaged in her own opinion on Twitter?”
It’s quite right to point out Republican hypocrisy,
but the Democrats lining up to defend Tanden ought to think a little harder
about their own double standards. If you think a high-powered brown woman
pushing a brown man for no legitimate reason isn’t a big deal, ask yourself
why. Bullying should never be OK, no matter who does it. Particularly as Tanden
doesn’t seem remorseful about what she did. Indeed, she seems to think her
combativeness is some sort of badge of honour.
Having said all that, I understand why some people are
eager to give Tanden a free pass. Women don’t often get to make mistakes. We
have to work harder than men to get to the top and we have to work harder to
stay there. There’s very little room for messing up: a 2016 study, for example,
found that women receive far harsher punishments than men for ethical
violations at work. And a study commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation
found 80% of news reports about female CEOs involved in a crisis cited the CEO
as the source of the problem. When a man was CEO, however, only 31% of stories
blamed him for the company’s issues.
It isn’t fair that women are consistently judged more
harshly than men. But we don’t fix that by holding women to lower standards –
we fix it by holding men to higher standards. I don’t know about you, but I
don’t want a world populated with more female Donald Trumps, I want a world
with more male Jacinda Arderns. Just because men get away with behaving badly
doesn’t mean Tanden’s behaviour should be condoned. I don’t care if she is, as
Biden says, “smart as hell”. I don’t care how qualified she is; her
unremorseful bullying should disqualify her immediately. If you can’t manage
your temper, you shouldn’t be managing the budget.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/05/neera-tanden-bullying-joe-biden-cabinet
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How Expo Live Is Helping Low Income African Women
Escape The Rental Trap
By Gavin Gibbon
Sun 6 Dec 2020
Anne Kyomugisha, managing director, Smart Havens
Africa.
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Expo Live was a promise that Dubai Ruler Sheikh
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum made when the emirate was bidding for Expo 2020,
and he has dedicated a $100m fund to support projects with innovative, creative
solutions to pressing challenges around the world – helping to improve people’s
lives, preserve the planet, or both.
The programme has an allocation of up to $100,000 per
project, as well as expert advice and the opportunity to share their ideas with
a global audience.
Expo Live projects look for solutions across 14
different sectors, including agriculture, education, environment, employment,
energy and healthcare as organisers look for projects that would not reach
their full potential without its support.
In the second of our series of articles, Arabian
Business talks exclusively to Anne Kyomugisha, managing director, Smart Havens
Africa, which aims to get low income women out of the rental trap by providing
them with a secure, affordable home to bring up children and the key tools for
a financially secure future that allows the whole family to flourish.
Smart Havens Africa (SHA) is a social enterprise
founded in 2018 with a mission to provide a sustainable affordable pathway to
home ownership for low-income families in Africa. SHA puts community needs at
the heart of every project. The model is built on job creation and social
impact through home ownership, financial inclusion and women’s empowerment.
In Uganda, high housing demand and extremely limited
affordable housing options have created a housing poverty trap that leaves
people paying large portions of their income for inadequate housing that never
results in ownership, often leads to health problems, and leaves many people
vulnerable to having their houses taken from them.
SHA has created a solution to the housing poverty trap
by providing low- to moderate-income households, especially female-headed
households, with an environmentally friendly, off-grid home, through an
affordable rent-to-own financing model, as well as training in financial
literacy and property management.
SHA’s solution is made possible by its sustainable,
low-cost housing design, which uses locally available materials and doesn’t
require fire like traditional brick.
When my father died leaving no will, my family were
kicked out of our home by relatives. For many years, we were practically
homeless. My mum fought for her rightful ownership of our home, but eventually
gave up. It affected our education, health and feeding. This inspired me to
become a female civil engineer, to create housing opportunities for people like
my mum. Despite qualifying to study civil engineering at Uganda’s prestigious
Makerere University, I couldn’t afford the fees because my mum was spending
most of her earnings on rent. To spare my already over-worked mother, I settled
for a government-sponsored degree in industrial design. Although I never
fulfilled my dream of becoming a female civil engineer, it gave me a passion
and desire to help women like my mother, and this led me to found Smart Havens
Africa. I want my story and experience to inspire others to follow their
passions and drive change in the world.
In most African countries, owning a home is nearly
impossible for women earning less than $8 a day. High costs and low incomes
shut these women out of the formal financial markets and limit their access to
finance and land tenure, making it hard for them to buy or build a home. Many
pay a high proportion of their income in rent and are trapped in poverty as a
result. Our founders have experienced first-hand how housing poverty affects
all spheres of life and are on a mission to change this for the 48 million
women in Africa who don’t own a home. We do this because affordable homes not
only provide a fundamental human right, they also unleash unimaginable human
potential to shape a future of gender parity and climate resilience.
Smart Havens Africa’s mission is to provide an
affordable pathway to home ownership for low-income women in Africa. It aims to
help these women out of the rental trap by providing them with a secure,
affordable home to bring up children, and the key tools to a financially secure
future to allow the whole family to flourish, while creating social and
environmental impact.
Our target customer segment is urban households,
especially those headed by women between the ages of 25-45, earning between $2
and $8 per day. They typically live in slums and urban centres, have between
one and five young children, are educated, and employed or entrepreneurs.
Neither the public nor private sectors meet their housing needs. They are
dissatisfied with their current home because of lack of space, poor conditions,
expensive and uncertain rents. They want a solution such as ours that delivers
savings and income stability; improves health; leads to asset ownership,
enhanced personal image, personal growth and job opportunities; reduces carbon
emissions; and improves the environment in which they can safely raise their
children.
The Expo Live funding will be used to conduct
targeted, advanced market research that will help SHA to scale its impact. By
conducting market research, SHA will attract more legitimate customers to be
able to scale its housing development activities and increase its social impact
by providing more low- to moderate-income Ugandans with ownership of an
affordable, quality home.
Also, SHA is beginning to scale very rapidly and has
plans to increase the number of houses it builds in the next three years. We
will create a social-impact evaluation report that will provide data-driven
insight into SHA’s existing social impact, so it can assess how well it is
currently meeting its organisational goals around providing quality, affordable
homeownership for low- to moderate-income earners and make informed decisions
about how to best meet those goals in the future as it scales.
Finally, with the help of the grant, we will also
enhance our designs and develop a targeted marketing strategy, strengthening
organisational management in terms of people and systems, so that we can
operate at a greater scale and improve our offering to customers.
In the next two years, we will build more than 625
homes, impacting 3,125 lives, while creating more than 15,575 jobs for young
women. We intend to scale our model into other regions, impacting more lives –
working at scale can mean impacting 50,000 lives by building 10,000 homes per
year.
https://www.arabianbusiness.com/culture-society/455347-how-expo-live-is-helping-low-income-african-women-escape-the-rental-trap
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Around The World, Older Women Have Confronted Fascists
With Calm Authority
Amulya Gopalakrishnan
December 6, 2020
After many days of Twitter ruckus, Kangana Ranaut was
forced to walk back her charge that the same elderly woman “available for 100
rupees” had been propped up by both the farmers agitation and at Shaheen Bagh.
Shaheen Bagh’s 82-year-old Bilkis Bano recently
featured in Time magazine’s most influential people, for the long sit-in
against the CAA and NRC. The photo shared by Ranaut was of Mohinder Kaur of
Bathinda, who has now become an iconic face of the farmer’s march. Through the
agitation, we have seen images of elderly women marching with their yellow
banners, or hunched over in a ring, cooking for the other protestors.
Special as our dadis and nanis are, this is not a
uniquely Indian phenomenon. In many parts of the the world, powerful strongmen
and fascist-leaning movements are confronting the most unlikely adversaries —
frail old women telling them exactly where to get off.
In Belarus, 73-year-old Nina Baginskaya became a
memorable face of opposition protests, holding her flag, pushing back riot
police, blocking armoured vehicles. In the US, the pushback to Trump rallied
grandmothers for reproductive rights (GRR!). In Germany, Omas gegen Rechts
(Grannies against the Right) in their signature woolly caps have been
demonstrating against the AfD. They remember Nazi horrors, and hear the
reverberations when words once wielded against Jews are now turned on Muslims.
In Austria and Poland, angry grandmothers are gathering for human rights,
marching against right-wing populists. Hong Kong’s ‘Grandma Wong’ was a
galvanising figure for protestors.
Cynics would say this is a strategic choice, that
grandmothers make for especially arresting visuals. Media is to crucial to
activism these days, and an image of a traumatised child or a gallant grandmother
can wrench attention to a cause, go viral, and stir some soft part of our
hearts. We feel both protective and moved.
Grandmothers call up all the virtuous associations of
motherhood, and magnify them. If mothers stand for a moral centre, “mere paas
ma hai”, grandmothers stand for a greater wisdom and experience. They are the
storytellers, the loving keepers of memory. This is why their resistance has
such righteous power. If mothers are allowed to be fierce when their children
are threatened, grandmothers have even greater authority in their indignation
for the brood, their bodily vulnerability only makes their voices ring
stronger. In Shaheen Bagh, generations of women sat together under a tent. The
security of their families and the future of their children and their
passionate defence of Indian citizenship were not separable, the personal and
the political blended as one.
In Argentina, the abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo
organised to demand accountability, to find the children systematically stolen
during the military dictatorship. In Kashmir, mothers and grandmothers have
waited, and waited, for disappeared persons. In Manipur, after Thagjam
Manorama’s killing, 12 imas disrobed in public, and stood there naked,
stubbornly dignified, unbearably powerful, saying “Indian army, rape us” — a
protest seared into the memory of anyone who saw it.
But for all the persuasive power of the grandmother
figure, does women’s political action need to be framed in terms of family? In
a man-made world, women are allowed to be angry for someone else’s sake, but
not to rage and transgress their roles. Compassion must drive their action, not
their own fury. We understand Antigone’s defiance of the king’s law for her
brother’s sake, we see the chaste widow Kannagi as a warrior for justice. But
women are not just wives and mothers and grandmothers, they are also workers
and farmers, citizens with direct stakes in their country.
In fact, many older women are often politicised by
life itself. It is only when women age that they finally see through their own
eyes, cast a cold clear eye on our social arrangements. They are past the
snares of patriarchy, whether it’s romantic love or domestic duty. Many women
have written and spoken of the mental freedom and self-possession they find only
in the last third of their lives.
Knowing this makes men particularly anxious about
older women. It is the shame of a patriarchal culture that is displaced into
the fear of the crone, the malevolent powers attributed to them in folklore.
It’s plain to see that not every elderly woman brings out our society’s tender
feelings. In India, homeless older women outside the family fold have often
been attacked or even lynched, suspected of being child-stealing witches.
So let’s not exaggerate their heart-melting powers
either. Repressive state forces and militias are discomfited by the sight of
grandmothers in the streets, and briefly unable to counter with force. But
beyond a point, as in Belarus today, security forces make no distinction
between young or old, male or female.
Older women are complex political agents, like
everybody else. Bilkis Bano or Mohinder Kaur are not shields or disarming cover
stories for other ‘real’ activists. They are massing on the streets with the
same concrete goals as their comrades. If anything unites them, it is perhaps
that they know what is to be on the other side of power. And having been on a
long journey to get here, they care urgently about where we’re headed.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/to-name-and-address/why-granny-power-works-around-the-world-older-women-have-confronted-fascists-with-calm-authority/
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UN Women Australia — Carrying the heavy load for women
BY PAUL WALLIS
06-12-2020
UN Women may have one of the hardest tasks in history
– Saving women from global insanities. It’s a long list of atrocities, and this
is the organization carrying the load.
There's a bit of back story to this. I spoke to
someone from UN Women after having supported one of their Facebook initiatives.
It was a very interesting chat but came with the truly grim spectre of the
realities faced by women every day worldwide.
Put it this way – In that 10-minute conversation, we
were talking about a virtual global disaster on multiple fronts. Being a guy,
of course, is no great help to understanding basic issues. What the hell would
we know about it?
So I decided to find out. I contacted UN Women
Australia, and Executive Director of UN Women Australia Janelle Weissman was
kind enough to answer a few questions for me. Gender equality is one of the
most basic of all issues. It's at the heart of the core issues, and it's an
ancient problem. As long as women are second-class citizens, it's basically
depriving half of humanity of fundamental needs. That needs to go, and soon.
Janelle’s answers are very clear and very thorough.
Note the unavoidable terminology, however – Violence, abuse, inequity. The
issues in gender equality aren’t simple, or nice. They’re brutal. They relate
directly to basic human rights.
Exactly why the world is creating such obstacles for
51% of the human race isn’t clear. Is this a civilization or a Stone Age
culture? Hard to tell on this level. The obstruction is systemic, it’s
primitive thinking, and it’s highly destructive.
The good news is you can get involved. You can donate
and you can partner with UN Women. You can help end the horrors, and assist
with productive solutions. Check it out.
Ten years ago, on 2 July 2010, UN Women was born. The
General Assembly voted to merge four parts of the UN system and establish UN
Women – which is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s
Empowerment.
Since then UN Women has been the global champion for
women and girls, working to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality in
over 100 countries.
UN Women works to accelerate progress in the gender
equality agenda, ensuring that everyone everywhere, regardless of gender, is
given the same opportunity to lead, to learn, to earn a decent living and to
live a life free from violence and discrimination.
Gender equality is not only a basic human right, but
its achievement has enormous socio-economic impacts. Empowering women fuels
thriving economies, spurring productivity and growth. Yet, still today, gender
inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every country in the world.
UN Women is working to change that by partnering with
grassroots organisations, community leaders, the private sector, governments
and across the UN system to collect and disseminate evidence to implement
transformative policies and programs to promote women’s leadership, end
violence, advance women’s economic empowerment and ensure women are central to
peace and humanitarian processes.
The response to COVID-19 is a reminder of the
essential contributions women make to society, but it has made clear the many
inequalities women and girls around the world face.
Women make up 70 per cent of workers in the health and
social sectors, while are also doing three times as much unpaid work as men.
They are hit harder by the economic impacts, due to the disproportionate number
of women working in insecure labour, with women suffering higher rates of wage
loss and unemployment.
There is also a looming Shadow Pandemic – that of
violence against women. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, all types of violence
against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has increased.
UN Women is working to mitigate the impacts of
COVID-19 on women and girls by addressing gender-based violence, supporting
women-owned enterprises, encouraging the equal share of care work, promoting
women’s leadership and providing direct technical support to governments and
partners to ensure national response strategies include the needs to women and
girls.
Despite progress made in recent years, COVID-19 is
rolling back progress in the gender equality agenda. We need to build back
momentum and we know that this can only be achieved by working together.
Companies can explore opportunities to partner with UN
Women globally. Businesses can also consider becoming a signatory to UN Women’s
Empowerment Principles to support the advancement of equality in your
workplace.
If you are in Australia, consider becoming an
Empowerment Champion and give a regular gift to provide invaluable support to
promote gender equality in Australia and across the globe.
Lastly, with the festive season approaching (and any
time of year), consider giving a gift with purpose. Empowered Gifts are unique
and meaningful gift cards that support UN Women programs in over 100 countries
across the globe. Each Empowered Gift represents a donation to UN Women and is
a real item that UN Women uses in our work advancing gender equality and
women’s empowerment worldwide – enabling women and girls to build brighter
futures for themselves, their families and their community.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/un-women-australia-carrying-the-heavy-load-for-women/article/581751
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Recognizing unpaid care work will reduce violence
against women
Kohinur Khyum Tithila
December 6th, 2020
People here in Bangladesh are still not familiar with
the idea that household work and care work has monetary value, said Prof
Mofizur Rahman of Dhaka University
Speakers at a webinar has said if women’s unpaid care
work is recognized, it will not only dispel gender inequality but also help reduce
violence against women as women will be empowered.
Nobonita Chowdhury, director of Gender, Justice, and
Diversity (GJD) and Preventing Violence Against Women Initiative at BRAC, said
about 65% work of rice milling and processing are done by women but their work
is not recognized at all.
“People in this society tend to think that what women
do at home does not have any monetary value and women are obligated to do care
work and household chores. If we cannot break this vicious cycle we cannot free
them from violence, child marriage, and injustice,” she said.
She also said elderly members of a family need extra
care and most of the time the woman of the family has to take the
responsibility.
“Old homes are portrayed as something bad on social
media and the entertainment industry but these people need a place to be taken
care of,” she said.
Meghna Guhathakurta, executive director of Research
Initiatives, said women multitask, like teaching their children and cooking at
the same time, but they do not really get any credit for it.
Reaz Ahmed, executive editor of Dhaka Tribune, said
addressing this issue will not only dispel gender disparity, but also recognize
the work women do for their family.
“Women and men both look after children and elderly
members of a family but a woman’s contribution is not really recognized and
deemed important,” he said.
Minara Begum, a beneficiary of ActionAid Power
Project, a project that mobilizes and organizes rural women to raise awareness
of and claim their rights as farmers and carers, said she never knew the work
women do all day long at home has a value until she became a part of this
project.
“My husband now helps me with cooking and many other
household chores but it was not the case a few years back. We had meetings with
our spouses under this project and made them understand that housework is not
just women’s responsibility,” she said.
Adiba Anjum MP, member of Parliamentary Standing
Committee of Ministry of Planning, said in many countries men and women do the
housework themselves but here in Bangladesh even children are not taught to do
their own work as their parents hire a maid for them if they can afford it.
Helal Uddin, South Asia Advocacy coordinator of
ActionAid International, said the government needs to upgrade the section of
the eighth Five Year Plan where the unpaid care work issue has been addressed.
Prof Mofizur Rahman of Dhaka University said people
here in Bangladesh are still not familiar with the idea that household work and
care work has monetary value.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/law-rights/2020/12/06/recognizing-unpaid-care-work-will-reduce-violence-against-women
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National Emergency Service 999 prevents 3,685 child
marriages in 2020
Nawaz Farhin Antara
December 5th, 2020
National Emergency Service 999 has prevented 3,685
child marriages in 2020.
The number of calls at 999 for preventing child
marriage was 45% higher this year compared to that of 2019.
According to the National Emergency Service, they have
prevented 3,685 child marriages between January and October, of which 426 were
in the month of October. In 2019, the number was 2,542, 147% higher than that
of 2018 which was 1,028.
Since school and colleges were announced to be closed
down for the pandemic, the number of calls suggest that child marriages were on
the rise, said officials of the National Emergency Service.
On information, they called up the local police
station. Police then went to the spot and solved the majority of the cases
through mutual understanding amid the pandemic and lockdown.
In several cases, the victim’s family was pressurized
to get their child married off while in others the family tortured the victim
to get married.
Mohammad Tabarak Ullah, additional deputy inspector
general (DIG) of police at National Emergency Service, told Dhaka Tribune that
after the lockdown started in April, the number of child marriages increased as
well. During the lockdown period, they were able to prevent 2,317 marriages.
“We received calls from neighbours, sisters, friends,
boyfriends, teachers, and even from grooms’ relatives as well. In some cases,
the girl who was the victim of the child marriage called and informed us,” he
added.
Advocate Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh
National Woman Lawyers´ Association (BNWLA), said: “We provide advocacy over
the phone for all the cases of child marriage we get information about, from
across the country.
“However, our experience in the lockdown is that
victims usually do not complain until they are brutally beaten by family
members or groom.
“Through consultancy, we solve 50% of the problems and
have been able to prevent some child marriages during this pandemic. We cannot
even reach the rest of the victims; however, they now make more calls to the
emergency helplines.”
People also called to ask for relief assistance
following the pandemic, to report corruption during relief distribution and to
complain about risky movement of Covid-19 patients.
Helpline officials said people could not get out of
their house due to the lockdown, as a result domestic violence has increased.
People have made more calls during the lockdown period seeking police
assistance.
In the last eight months, they received 4,956 calls
reporting violence against women and children incidents. The number of calls is
2,220 higher compared to the same period in 2019.
In the last three years, 79% of the calls received by
National Emergency Service were blank, crank, or prank calls from all across
Bangladesh while the other 21% sought for services.
The assessment of statistics of calls to 999 between
December 12, 2017, and November 18, 2020, shows that the helpline received
25,644,382 calls, of which only 5,448,338 calls sought for services, said
authorities of National Emergency Service.
However, no action has been taken yet against these
blank, crank, and prank callers. At least 467 people work for the emergency
service, who receive 33,000 calls,on an average, every day. Maximum of the calls
received are blank while 3000-4000 are prank calls.
Specific policies for 999 will be formulated soon. The
matter will then be dealt with in accordance with the law, said Mohammad
Tabarak Ullah.
Meanwhile, in the same time period, CFS received 424,582
calls in total, of which 77% sought police service, 12% fire service and 11%
ambulance.
The National Emergency Service is there to provide
emergency services to people all across Bangladesh. However, people still do
not understand what kind of service they should call 999. Therefore, calls
seeking services are less in numbers, according to sources.
Numbers making blank, prank, or crank calls are never
blocked as at some point the people who are doing these might need emergency
service as well, sources added.
“The number of fake calls is not just high in
Bangladesh, it is a worldwide problem for helpline service providers. We have
not taken any measure yet to prevent this, rather we receive the calls and say
we cannot provide this service,” said Tabarak Ullah.
“People of our country are still not aware of the
helpline services, it will take more time for them to understand. We have to
build awareness in all parts of our country,” he added.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2020/12/05/national-emergency-service-999-prevents-3-685-child-marriages-in-2020
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/afghan-female-bikers-smash-stereotypes/d/123676
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