Table of contents

Content Page Numbers

Introduction 2-3

Background 4–7

Areas of Research 8

Hypothesis 9

Methodology 10

Data Presentation and Analysis 11 - 26

Summary of Research Findings 27

Recommendations 28

Conclusion 30

References 30 – 31

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Introduction
Social viciousness is growing rapidly in every sphere of our society. Among them one of the hot

cake is “Eve-teasing” .In 1970s it received the first attention by public and media. . Eve- teasing

is another name for sexual street harassment or molestation of women by men in public places.

The term eve- teasing is commonly used in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal. The term

‘Eve’ refers to the biblical Eve means first woman on earth. Eve teasing leads for an attempt to

irritate a girl or catch her attention forcefully. Some significant patterns of eve-teasing which are

commonly used widely are a lewd stare, a sly whistle, a well-timed clap, an unwarranted bump, a

seemingly causal touch, a lingering look at a vulnerable time, the humming of suggestive song,

passing downright uncouth comments, cheap gestures, display of indecent snaps or videos,

giving “unwelcome call” or “missed call”, sending indecent texts.

Strange but true is our country Bangladesh is a small and developing country but it is already

encompassed with multiple problems. Among them, eve-teasing, now-a-days, has become a talk

of the country owing to injurious effects on women, especially to the teen aged girls. However,

it’s obvious that no conscious citizen of our country is unacquainted with this problem created by

evil-doers. Eve teasing becomes a common phenomenon in our day to day life. Whenever we put

our eyes on daily newspapers, we find news of suicide of any school or college going girl which

is the outcome of eve-teasing. As every citizen of our country has a handsome amount of

knowledge regarding eve teasing so there is no need to define it black and white. Through

satellite TV, the young boys and girls are watching pornography which is directly or indirectly

leading them to eve-teasing. However there are possible other reasons like lack of proper

education, late marriage, improper dress up, lack of care my family or culture and many more. In

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addition to these, Firoz (2010) also mentioned that “in Bangladesh, most victims of it are women

or girls who fail to wear very modest dress. On the contrary, women with the decent dress are not

found to be teased as usual or comparatively less. The previous two sentences imply that not

only the evil doer youths, but also the women wearing provocative dress are equally responsible

for it. Though today we have many laws for preventing eve teasing but unfortunately it is not

enough to break the wall against eve teasing. Our Parents can play a vital role to scale down this

issue if they can put an effort to make their children realize the impacts of eve-teasing.”In every

walk of life, every citizen and every individual’s right is to fight against eve-teasing and get it

removed or at least mitigated at any cost. We all should be more active to lessen this burden

from our society.

As a result of all these concerns, in this research project ,I am going to emphasize on the public

harassment of women in regards to Dhaka city only, with basically high school and university

going students in mind. This research is done because eve- teasing has been considered a

problem for a very long time now. It is a form of sexual aggression that ranges in severity from

sexually suggestive remarks, brushing in public places and catcalls to outright groping in streets,

market place and almost everywhere now, which will severely be hindering women’s

productivity as well as mobility. In the long run, these women and girls, their families and thus

the whole family will be suffering .It is not that easy to prove eve-teasing a notoriously difficult

crime but through this research I want to explore what are the major causes of eve-teasing in

Dhaka and what causes a difference in the views of men and women on this issue and how

significantly the views of men and women vary on this issue.

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Background
Eve-teasing, a violence against women is a common occurrence in most societies where the

violence is physical or mental. In South Asia, it is a daily and often deadly fact of life for

millions of women and girls. As a South Asian county, Bangladesh is not different from it. Eve-

teasing focused in Bangladesh through media in 1990s. But the cases were a few and countable.

But considering the current situation in Bangladesh, particularlyaround two thousands of the

incidents of eve-teasing has already been noted here there and it has become rampant almost

everywhere. No media and newspaper now are found without the silly news of eve-teasing every

day. Violence against women is amongst the most serious threats to overall developments and

progress in Bangladesh as it puts women’s lives at risk in almost all parts of the country.

A research has shown that 91.3% women are the victims of eve-teasing, out of these 87%

incidents go to the age level of 10 to 18 years. 60% women are eve-teased by mobile miss call

and sexy massages. Some are adversely affected by internet pornography and the percentage of

this group is 10.8%. This fact was found out by Bangladesh National women Lawyer

association. They prepared a document containing 1000 women of 10 to 15 years age group to

know about the eve-teasing situation. (Research of BNWLA, Daily ProthomAlo, 2010).

Recent surveys of 512 educational institutions of 64 districts of Bangladesh show 62% school

girls are victims of eve-teasing. Another research shows 87% girls of schools and colleges have

now become victim of eve-teasing. Action Aid Bangladesh found that 41% girl students do not

find their campus free from eve-teasing. 63.6% students say many teachers themselves are

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involved in eve-teasingactivities and the rest 38.1% students say they know about many eve-

teasing victims caused by teachers. (Statistics of Child Parliament, Daily Amar Desh, 2010)

Bangladesh National Lawyer association has given another statistic that in 2006 there are 24

stories of eve-teasing in various newspapers, 20 in 2007, 39 in 2008, 54 in 2009, 52 in 2010

(NajneenAkhter, Daily Janakontha, 2010). But Odhiker has reported in 2011 there are 672

incidents of eve-teasing. According to Odhiker report there were 129 incidents in 2010 (Odhikar,

2010). Not only this, but also Firoz (2010) found that “Ain-O-Shalish Kendra (ASK), which is a

human rights organization reveal that 14 girls and women have taken their own lives over the

past four months across the country for Eve Teasing. In addition, a father and a daughter also

committed suicide jointly - in an incident blamed by the authorities on Eve Teasing - while

police say three males who publicly protested against the practice have been killed by stalkers

over the past 12 weeks.”

Last but not the least, Salim (2010) highlighted the frightening tragic story of 13 year old

NashfiaAkand Pinky. “Pinky was a ninth-grade student of a school only half a kilometer away

from where she lived with her uncle in central Dhaka.On her way to school, she was stalked by

her 22-year-old male neighbor and some of his friends who, according to her family, persisted

with "ribald comments, smutty jokes, coarse laughter, sly whistles and even indecent exposure”.

The neighbor is alleged to have been stalking her for several months .On 19 January; she went

out of her house to buy some medicine for a niggling hand injury. The neighbor and his friends

blocked her way and made suggestive remarks. She became angry and protested. After that, he

became more aggressive and bombarded her with crude language, pulling off her scarf and

slapping her face. Pinky fell down on the street under a barrage of blows. Some neighbors

apparently saw the incident yet did not try to stop it or protest against it.Ali Ashraf Akhand,

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Pinky's uncle, said that she suffered "serious mental torment from this indecent assault”. “She

could not tolerate the insult of it," he said, "so she hanged herself with a sari scarf tied to a

ceiling fan in her drawing room”. Pinky informed me around 15 days before her suicide about

the stalking by the neighbor. I tried to warn him off but he became more predatory," MrAkhand

said. His version of events seems to be borne out by a note Pinky wrote just before the suicide.

"When [my tormentor] pulled my scarf and harassed me physically in front of the house,

onlookers at the scene laughed. Nobody protested. None of my family members are responsible

for my suicide." Bangladesh police chief Nur Mohammad said that Pinky's cases - and others

like them - were a cause for "grave concern". He said harassment was a problem that urgently

needed to be sorted out. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said female students and female

teachers are at present not safe on streets or in schools. “That is no exaggeration. In some places,

schools have been shut down and exams delayed because of the problems caused by Eve teasing

stalkers.”Those who are teased do not like to go to school and sometimes guardians do not allow

them to go to school for their safety and honor. So the drop-out rate of female students in many

schools is increasing," MrNahid said.

Another negative manifestation of the problem is the tendency of parents to push underage

daughters into early marriages so that they can escape Eve teasing. Parents think that if their

daughter has a husband, they will be saved from the dangers.

Above statistics clearly show that the incident of eve-teasing are alarmingly increasing year by

year. Therefore, it is obvious that Bangladesh is also adversely affected for this. Eve-teasing has

no positive impact but has a great negative influence over the family, society and of course the

country. The demerits of eve-teasing are very clear to us. Many girls are committing suicide to

save them from the teasers. This is not only frightening but threatening as well.

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Recently one Mother was killed to save her daughter from the eve-teasers. This is a real shame.

Many of the girls are feeling insecure to go the schools. As a result, the parents are not allowing

the girls to go to school or even outside of home. This is how the drop-out rate of female students

is increasing day by day. Not only this, the victim girl may lose his mental balance.In most cases,

girls are letting married in an early age. This underage marriage problem is also increasing by

this eve-teasing problem. The guardians assuming, their daughter will be safe and fine with her

husband. Basically the rate of illiterate people is high in Bangladesh. This illiteracy is a curse in

this modern era. The female illiteracy is higher toss. In this case, if this eve-teasing problem

exists for a long time, Bangladesh will let down from worse to worst in terms of female

education. If the girls are getting married in an early age, they will probably having more babies,

which will make the population problem destructive.

So in a sense, it can be said that Eve-teasing may create more problems beyond our expectation.

The eve teasers are becoming more dangerous. They are willingly doing all these and asking

hazards in society. They seemed to be committed of doing anything they want in the sake of their

wish. These young teasers are turning out to be a terrorist in the coming days.

To an extent, on a positive note, there are plenty of NGOs in Bangladesh who are working for

the cause of women empowerment too. They are teaching women on how to deal with difficult

people and how to fight back against the harassment at workplace. Workplace gender

discrimination is not a new thing but some prominent organizations are leading the way to rectify

the situation. Dealing with eve teasing has been made further easy by some charity organizations

that help women with harassment problems. We still have to go a long way to completely rectify

the situation.

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Areas of Research
In my research, I mainly planned to investigate the causes of eve-teasing in Dhaka city, as well

as to know the different perspectives of men and women regarding this issue. And also how can

victims be aware of this issue. To that end I addressed some questions to conduct a survey for

my research here:

 What is do you understand by “Eve-teasing” or sexual harassment in general?

 Is eve-teasing a very common thing in Dhaka right now?

 Which category of women do you think suffers the most from eve-teasing?

 In which places of Dhaka is eve-teasing mostly seen?

 Are men only to be blamed for eve-teasing?

 In your opinion, why do you think men harass women?

 Why do you think about sexual harassment occur in Dhaka?

 Do you think women are secure moving alone in Dhaka city?

 How do you think victims should protect themselves from eve-teasing?

 How do you think most women react when they are harassed publicly?

 How do you think women should actually respond to eve-teasing?

 What could be the possible consequences of eve-teasing?

 Do you think the Bangladesh police play an important role in preventing Eve-teasing?

 Is there any difference in the views of men and women regarding eve-teasing?

 If you think there is a difference, why does it exist?

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Hypothesis
Currently in Bangladesh, the increasing situation of eve-teasing is plaguing the society of Dhaka

severely. Almost every day, it is seen as the most highlighted headlines in newspapers and also

in news channels. In most cases, it is seen that women are the main victims to it rather than men.

However, in my research project I will not be focusing much on who are the victims but to

actually find out the major causes why men are involved in sexual street harassment. Therefore,

the major result that I expect from my primary research is that men are busy harassing women

publicly possibly because men think it’s a smart or manlier act, or bad associations,negligence to

and from the family or poor education, lack of respect or could be depression. I also expect to

find out that there will be a highly significant difference in the views of men and women on this

issue probably because men think they are more dominant in society than women and have the

rights to do anything they want, and political involvement and abuse of power could be a good

reason because the eve teasers are the supporter of political parties for which they do not care

laws or lack of family bondage or possible other practical reasons.

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Methodology
I used both primary and secondary sources to conduct my research project. For my primary

research, I have conducted a survey of 30 educated young men and women in Dhaka city, of

which 15 were men and 15 were women. For the survey, the questionnaire I designed was with

different types of questions mostly concerning with the causes of eve-teasing and how the views

of men and women differ on this issue. Besides the survey, I also took the opinions of some

people who had undergone and overcome this type of relative situations. Thus, I have got a range

of useful data which helped me to answer my research questions and hence test my hypothesis.

For secondary data, I used resources from some reliable websites, journals, Encyclopedia, online

news sources and articles to collect the statistics. In addition to this, I have also collected some

crucial information from media and academic websites too.

10 | P a g e
Data Presentation and Analysis

In this section, I am going to present the primary research result based on survey questionnaires

that I have conducted.

General information of the survey and the respondents are presented below.

Sample Size: The sample size was 30

Target group:Young male and female in Dhaka city

11 | P a g e
Gender information: The samples contain a balanced set of respondents in terms of gender

distribution. Among 30 samples, 15 were male and 15 were female.

Overall, I have asked 15 questions through the questionnaire for each of the 30 individuals. Of

those, the first question that I asked through the survey was very general i.e. “What do

you understand by “Eve-teasing” or “Sexual street harassment” in general?”

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
No.of responders

Series1
Male
Female

Figure 1

Figure 1 above shows the different ideas that both men and women have regarding eve-teasing.

As per graph, we can clearly see that, majority of the male and female, i.e. 9 out of 15 male

respondents (60%) and 11 out of 15 female respondents (73.3%)feel that eve-teasing is the act of

annoying women to get her attention in a public place. Whereas, 6.67% male and 20% female

respondents said that it is a light-hearted flirtation with women by men publicly for pleasure,

26.7% male and 6.67% female respondents said it is asserting men’s power by intruding into

women’s private territory and very few i.e. only 1 male and no female claimed that eve-teasing is

12 | P a g e
a modern way of showing love and affection for women by men. Therefore, it can be concluded

that probably eve-teasing is actually a severe problem or possibly is a dangerous social evil

related to the delinquency in youth.

Since now I already know that actually how much correct idea people have regarding eve-

teasing, my next question to the respondents was “ Is eve-teasing a very common thing in

Dhaka right now?”

12

10

8
No. of responders

6 Series1
Male
Female
4

0
Yes, it is usually seen in Yes, it is now almost No, it is very rare Not at all
Dhaka everywhere in Dhaka

Figure 2

Figure 2 actually talks about whether eve-teasing is a common phenomenon or not in Dhaka and

as per graph it clearly shows that majority of both the male (53.3%) as well as female (66.7%)

respondents strong claimed that yes, eve-teasing is now almost in every corner of Dhaka city.

Whereas, 40% of the male and 20% of the female respondents said, eve-teasing is usually seen in

Dhaka now-a-days. Only 6.67% of the male said eve-teasing is rarely seen in Dhaka and 13.3%

13 | P a g e
of the female respondents said it not at all seen, Dhaka is very safe. Since, majority of the people

said its seen everywhere in Dhaka, this is may be because both men and women get to see such

behaviors’ in their daily lives when they are out in streets. Hence, this is probably a sign to alarm

public to start taking actions against this social violence.

We all know that most eve-teasing victims are women, but to confirm, my next question to the

respondents was, “Which category of women do you think suffers the most from eve-

teasing?”

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
t g t Male
os sin os or
y
m a m eg Female
e te e t
th e- th a
er ev er ec
ff m ff th
su ro su of
ir ls ts f ak
a ve
eg o Dh ecti
ag em o sp
en rt
h et re
Te ffe co
m ; ir
u en
ss wh
o m
he
r
s wo
ot r ist an
y
M ou
t
ale
em
F

Figure 3

As per figure 3, we can see that 73.3% of the male and 80% of the female respondents said that

teenaged girls suffer the most from eve-teasing and no male and female respondents claimed that

there are some mothers who suffer the most. Whereas 6.67% of men and no women supported

14 | P a g e
that the female tourists who come to Dhaka are the ones who suffer the most. Lastly, again 20%

of both male and female respondents also said that any women; irrespective of the category have

chances of suffering from eve-teasing. The reason why teenage girls suffer the most is may be

because now more and more women started going to college and working independently,

meaning that they were often no longer accompanied by a male as it had been a norm in the

traditional society.

After that, I asked another general question to the respondents, i.e. “in which places of Dhaka is

eve-teasing mostly seen?”

12

10

8
No.of respondents

6 Series1
Male
Female
4

0
mostly seen infront of mostly seen in public Seen everwhere in Dhaka Not seen at all
schools, colleges, transportation
shopping malls

Figure 4

According to Figure 4, majority of the respondents, i.e. 66.7% of the male and 33.3% of the

female claimed that eve-teasing is mostly seen in front of schools, colleges and shopping malls.

This is probably because teenaged girls are the biggest sufferers of Eve-teasing and of course

these girls are found high in number in front of schools, colleges, etc.Whereas,6.67% of the male

15 | P a g e
and 33.3% of the female respondents supported that eve-teasing is mostly spotted in public

transportation, like bus. This is possibly based on the experience that some women faced or has

seen when they took public transportation and 26.7% of the male and 33.3% of the female

respondents said that eve-teasing is seen in every corner of Dhaka now and exactly no

respondents claimed that eve-teasing is not seen at all. Exactly no respondents said that eve-

teasing is not seen at all in Dhaka today. Therefore, this shows that victims should be more

conscious when stepping out of home alone in Dhaka.

It’s true that women are the victims to eve-teasing but to figure out who is to be blamed for these

social evils, my question to the respondents was “Are men only to be blamed for eve-teasing?”

14

12

10
No.of respondents

8
Series1
Male
6
Female

0
Yes, mostly men are to No, men & women are No, only women are to No one to blame, its
be blamed to blame equally be blamed natural

Figure 5

From the above data representation in Figure 5, we can clearly see that around 73.3% of the

female respondents claim that in most cases, only men are to be blamed. This is may be because

there is lack of education, or lack of family bondage etc. On the other hand, around 80% of the

16 | P a g e
male respondents claim that men and women, both are to be equally blamed for it. This is

possibly because there are times when women motivate men with their body language and

sometimes with their clothes also do play a role in motivating men. A few male respondents,

13.3% said only women are to be blamed and only 6.67% of the males said that no one is to be

blamed in particular for eve-teasing since it’s a natural phenomenon for all human being.

To gather more knowledge about the causes related to eve-teasing, my next question was “In

your opinion, why do you think men harass women?”

10
8
6
4
2
0

Male
Female

Figure 6

17 | P a g e
As per Figure 6 above, we can see that 53.3% of the male respondents claimed that they actually

do eve-teasing for fun and to have a good time pass when hanging out with friends and 26.7% of

the males said that eve-teasing makes them more manly, so they tend to do it, 6.67% said they do

it to get rid of frustration and the rest said that they do it because they feel women actually like it

internally. This is possibly because; young men have a natural tendency to check out women in

streets and try to have fun by passing comments when with friends. Whereas 60% of the female

respondents claimed that men tease as it makes them manlier and the rest 40% think that men

tease for fun and good time pass. This is possible because women think that men like to show off

with his attitude, power and looks to some extent to impress women but to extreme, men

possibly cross their limits and are given the title of eve-teasers.

Now that we know men are involved in eve-teasing, the next question to my respondents was

“Why do you think sexual harassment occur in Dhaka?”

12
10
8
6
4
2
No.of respondents

0
s es
re ely ed
tl u ir at tim
eed Series1
cu p ng en Male
n ro ro us
r eig pp w ca Female
fo ina ea
t
no
of s c
es la n;
on dr p tio
pti en ong ac
ad
o
om wr attr
l
ive sw to ra
ss A go atu
x ce en n
fe m sa
o o It’
se A sw
cau
Be

Figure 7

18 | P a g e
As per Figure 7, we can see that around 53.3% of male and 66.7% of the female respondents

supported the fact that sexual harassment is happening in Dhaka because of excessive adoption

of foreign cultures. This is possibly because most of the women and also men watch television

from which they learn and may try to apply in real life, but for a Muslim country like ours these

are actually prohibited. However, 40% of the male and 20% of the female respondents also

claimed that women dressing inappropriately by learning from foreign cultures could probably a

reason too. And the rest of the male and female respondents said men falling for women are a

natural law of attraction, hence no particular reason is needed to exist behind this. None of the

respondents said that because women go to wrong places at wrong times, eve-teasing is

happening. This is may be because, it’s a basic human right for all citizens of the country to

move around Dhaka, regardless male or female at any time they want to.

Now-a-days, women are seen to be very independently moving in Dhaka alone and working too

for running their families. So my question to the respondents was “Do you think women are

secure moving along in Dhaka city?”

19 | P a g e
 12
10
8
6
4
2
No. of responders

Series1
Male
Female

Figure 8

The Figure 8 above clearly shows that majority, i.e. 53.3% of the males and 66.7% of the

females agreed that women never feel secure moving alone in Dhaka, irrespective of the time,

place or the clothes they wear. This is may be because of excessive adoption of foreign cultures.

It’s obvious that not all men are same. Some men watch TV programs and other movies and tend

to apply it on any women they find attractive in streets. However, 20% of the male and 13.3% of

the female respondents also claimed that women sometimes feel secure, irrespective of time,

place and both men and women (20%) equally supported that women feel secure only if her

clothes, time and place are okay. This is probably because, if women wear decent clothes, it is

less likely men will look at her in a dirty way. In addition, just 6.67% of the male respondents

claimed that women always feel secure in Dhaka, as they find Dhaka to be very safe now.

All the women in Dhaka have chances to be a victim of eve-teasing. Therefore, all women

should be alert 24/7 and do their best to protect themselves. To know more, my question to the

respondents was “How do you think victims should protect themselves from eve-teasing?”

20 | P a g e
 10
8
6
4
2
0
No.of respondents

Series1
Male
Female

Figure 9

From Figure 9 above,we can clearly see that majority of the women (60%) suggested that all

women should carry defensive items with themselves like pepper spray or needles, just in case of

emergency, but only 20% of the male respondents supported this most probably because they

know they are the guilty culprits. Also, 40% of the male and 13.3% of the female respondents

said women must avoid wearing provocative clothes, may be only then men will avoid looking at

women with an evil eye. And, 40% of the male and 20% of the female respondents also said that

women must avoid going out alone at specific places, like dark and quite areas, possibly because

now we all know that eve-teasing the most highlighting story of Dhaka currently. Just 6.67% of

the female respondents claimed that women don’t need any initiatives to protect themselves as

they findDhaka a very safe place to move around. They probably claimed this may be because

they are not in touch with newspapers or the social evils happening in Dhaka.

21 | P a g e
It is obvious that touching women without their consent or sexual street harassment will make

the victim react. So, my next question to the respondents was “How do you think most women

react when harassed publicly?”

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
No.of respondents

0
y t Series1
wa h elp tize
d
en
a r a m Male
ng fo m ss
la ki rs au ara Female
he tr eh
yw t d, th
b ko te st
or
e as li ia ia n
gi n m
hu ag
pl
y d, ce
re voi
iS m a
y sc ais
e
er r
t v
tely
ge ia
ed
m
im

Figure 10

According to the figure 10 above, we can clearly see that majority of both the male and female

respondents (40%) noted that most women simply ignore the situation by walking away. This is

probably because; women give themselves high hopes that by ignoring the teasers, one day or the

other the eve-teasers will give up on the victim. Also, as per the graph, 6.67% of the male and

20% of the female respondents said they saw women asking for help from others nearby.

Whereas, 26.7% of the males and 33.3% of the female respondents claimed that some women get

scared, traumatized and humiliated facing such a situation. This could be because they are of

course not used to such eve-teasing evils. And the rest of the male (26.7%) and female (6.67%)

22 | P a g e
respondents said some women immediately raise their voice against the harassment either by

slapping or may be by calling the police.

Sometimes it is seen that women don’t react the way they should react, mainly because they

can’t decide which act to approach with. Therefore, the next question that I asked the

respondents was “How do you think women should actually respond to eve-teasing?”

12
8
4
No.of respondents

0
Series1
Male
Female

Figure 11

The Figure 11 above clearly shows that the female (86.7%) and 26.7% of the male respondents

mostly claim that women should immediately call the police and ask for help instead of taking

law in one’s hand, may be because women believe that strict laws have been initiated by the

government to take actions against such evils. On the other hand, 33.3% of the male respondents

suggest that women should give men a warning before taking any action, possibly because some

men do it in peer pressure when out with friends and they can take it as a lesson of shame and

never repeat again, but no women respondents suggested this. However, 26.7% of the male and

6.67% of the female respondents says that women should simply ignore these situations every

time by walking away. And very few male (13.3%) and female (6.67%) respondents said that

23 | P a g e
women should stop moving outside alone at specific time and place. The rating is very less may

be because moving around in Dhaka city alone or with a guardian is one’s choice and a basic

human right too.

Not all victims are capable of tolerating eve-teasing happening with them so easily. Keeping this

in mind, I asked my respondents, “What could be the possible consequences of eve-teasing?”

8
6
4
No.of respondents

2
0
Series1
Male
Female

Figure 12

From the above figure 12,we can see that 33.3% of the male and 6.67% of the female

respondents said that some women cannot tolerate and thus become abnormal mentally, may be

because not all women are mentally strong enough to cope up with these social evils. Also, it can

be seen that 26.7% of the male and 33.3% of the female respondents claimed that some women

also commit suicide, may be because the victims feel very used and think that there is no place

for them in society. However, majority of the female (53.3%) and 26.7% of the males argued that

eve-teasing bounds families to block women education and encourages early marriage. Probably

parents think this way their child will be safe and not ruining their societal status. Only a few

respondents, 13.3% of the males and 6.67% of the females said that some women get strong and

24 | P a g e
thus protest against eve-teasing with the help of the laws initiated by the government. This is

may be because these women are mentally very strong and they know their basic rights and also

possibly because they believe that if one victim stands against it, other victims will also be

encouraged to join in.

We all know government has initiated laws for the victims of eve-teasing. So to know how far

it’s going effective, I asked my respondents, “Do you think the law enforcement agency

(Bangladesh police) play an important role in preventing eve-teasing?”

5
No.of respondents

4
Series1
3 Male
Female
2

0
Yes, I definitely think Yes, I think police play Police officers are also Police officers are not
the police is very strict a role when bribe is eve-teasers strict at all
about it given

Figure 13

From the above Figure 13, we can see that both male and female respondents equally (33.3%)

claimed that they definitely think that the Bangladesh police is very strict about such social evils,

may be because they have seen in their practical life how laws that have been initiated by

government are being applied. An equal number of both male and female respondents (20%) also

argued that they do think the police play a role only when bribe is given under the table, may be

because they have seen the reluctant behavior of the police officers in Dhaka. However, 26.7%

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of the male and 6.67% of the female respondents said that the police officers play no role in such

circumstances; in fact they themselves are a portion of the eve-teasers, possibly because they

know the power is in their hand and thus they try to take full advantage of it. And 20% of the

male and 40% of the female respondents said the police officers are not at all strict, probably

because they found out that when victims ask for help, they return empty handed.

My research topic also deals with the existence of any difference between men and women’s

perspectives. So my next question to the respondents was “Is there any difference in the views

of men and women regarding eve-teasing?”

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
No.of respondents

Series1
Male
Female

Figure 14

As we can see in Figure 14 above, 20% of the male and 26.7% of the female respondents said

that most women view eve-teasing negatively and most men positively, probably because

women are the major victims and men are the culprits. Also, it shows that 26.7% of the male and

33.3% of the female respondents said that men and women’s views differ significantly. Whereas,

equal number of men and women (33.3%) claimed that only in some specific cases, the views of

26 | P a g e
men and women can differ significantly. The rest of the respondents, male (20%) and female

(6.67%) argued that all men and women have same views regarding eve-teasing, regardless of

anything.

Assuming that there exists a difference in the views of men and women, my last question to the

respondents was “If you do think there is a difference in the views of men and women, why

does it exist?”
No. of respondents

8
6
4
2
0
Series1
Male
Female

Figure 15

From the above data representation of Figure 15, we can clearly see that majority of both male

and female respondents equally (53.3%) claimed that men think they are more dominating than

women in the society and probably can do anything they want, but women cannot. Whereas, only

13.3% of the male and 6.67% of the female respondents said that a difference in the views of

men and women exist may be because men think eve-teasing is a positive thing as it makes them

very smart and manly. However, 13.3% of the male and 33.3% of the female respondents say

27 | P a g e
that a difference exists as women think that men and women should be treated equally in the

society, instead of just discriminating women. And the rest of the respondents, male (20%) and

female (6.67%) argue that a difference exists possibly because women think that eve-teasing is

entirely a negative thing as it makes women humiliate in public places.

Summary of Research Findings

From the data analysis, one thing is clear that women are in vulnerable situation in Dhaka. There

are lots of women who are tortured in various ways every day. Many women keep silent after

such incidents as women don’t want to bring forward their domestic and personal problems. But

when the problem is out of control it bursts out. Even a woman doesn’t want to complain to her

parents regarding such incidences as the feel it is the matter of shame.

Eve-teasing does exist in Dhaka and it is actually seen in every corner of the city and teenage

girls being the major victims to it. Obviously both men and women are to be blamed in some

cases but men are mostly to be blamed. The findings show that men do it mostly because of fun

in peer pressure and its influence is coming from the excessive adoption of foreign cultures.

Therefore women never feel secure irrespective of her clothes, time or place. And it is also seen

that in most of the cases men and women view differ significantly and thus matches my

hypothesis.

Bangladesh have already witnessed huge atrocities against women rapes, kidnapping, eve

teasing,etc. Women education is expanding but before that and presently lots of women are

deprived of education, self-awareness. Most of them are unaware of rights and law. That’s why

they are victims of dowry, acid attacks etc. A woman needs family support after they are

28 | P a g e
victim.Our law should be stronger and its execution must bemonitored. There should be separate

law for eve teasing and that should not only in papers, we want its reflection in our life. This

study aims to understand the present situation of violence against women in Dhakaand to

understand various factors that are responsible for eve teasing. We want women of positive

existence not as show pieces which enhance society’s false pride, family’s beauty or newspapers

sale.

Recommendations
Eve teasing is an internal problem of Bangladesh. People need to know about the demerits of eve

teasing and needs to raise their consciousness among the general people. People also need to

change their mentality. We always had a negative mind set for the girls. Many of us are not ready

to accept the equality between a girl and a boy. We need to change our view on girls. We must

see them as a human being and credit them if they deserve. We must believe a girl can do as

much as a boy can do. To do so, to change our view, we need people to be informed about

that.There arethings that we need to try heart and soul to prevent eve-teasing. For a Muslim

country like Bangladesh, Islamic education should be given importance in every stage of

education. Also, all people of the society should give order to another to do good deeds and

prohibit bad works and all workless people must be given employment. In addition, the criminals

must not be given any sort of resort, they must be directly punished under the operation of law

and the door of vulgar song, cinema, and open sky culture must be closed too.

Moreover, misuse of technology must be controlled. And, opportunity of free mixing of male

and female and co-education must be stopped. Steps should be taken to preach the bad effects of

eve teasing to the mass people. Not only this, but also all guardians have to be cautious. They

29 | P a g e
have to inquire their children's behaviors in the streets or outside. If any fault is found then

necessary family punishment should be given to their children. Everybody has to come forward

and hinder the occurrence if they observe any incident of eve teasing in any place. The rulers

must hold good character. We have to keep in mind that if the conduct of the ruler is not good

then it is obvious that the character of the ruled would be bad. Reformation of the character of

the ruler is a precondition to reform the character of the nation.

Conclusion
Infact, eve-teasing seems to be an outcome of various social factors. Assuredly, Eve-teasing

leads to a darkest side of humanity where victims might face a traumatic experience which

can leave deep psychological scars and has negative consequences for them and as well as the

greater community. To state precisely, eve-teasing is not a problem rather, it is a collection of

problems that shows a typical failure of the society we live in. We should stand against the

discrimination between men and women. Men and women are equal in all squares. Women

deserve respect and should be treated with dignity. Our lack of consciousness has led to a loss

of many lives. It is the high time we should realize this burning issue and start doing all the

necessary arrangements to save those lives related with eve-teasing.. We already squander lot

of innocent lives. No more.. Women have the right to live freely in the world. Independence

is their birth right. They have the right to lead their lives as males. On the other hand, the

family and society of the victims or teased girls should have the courage and resolve to

support them. Most often, they are misunderstood by their family whenever they inform the

family members about teasing. The family and society should support them mentally. So as

the government must take things seriously. The country wants both of them to be active in

30 | P a g e
 such issues. We cannot remove this problem for good and it seems quite impossible so we

people should come forward in order that this emerging practice of sexual street harassment

can be mitigated. As a result it will encourage young generation to think positively and also

they will be interested to do positive stuffs and create a positive vibe for the society. Only a

respectful, dignified and helpful mind from us will help to get rid of this fatal eve-teasing.

References
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Akhtar, N. (2010, May 30). "Eve teasing-02" The Daily Janakantha, P 01.

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Eve-teasing.(n.d.).Wikipedia.Retrieved December 20, 2014, from

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for-eve-teasing-victims-in-bangladesh/

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