Participants in a debate competition on Saturday emphasised social and economic development of women to end gender discrimination and harassment of women in the country.
They were addressing the divisional final round of Inter University Parliamentary Debate Competition 2011 at Barisal Model School and College.
Bangladesh Debate Federation, UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and empowerment of women, and Barisal Debating Society jointly organised the competition with a slogan ‘no more violence against women.’
Students’ teams from Barisal Government Brojo Mohun College, Barisal Government Hatem Ali College, Sher-e-Bangla Medical College, Pirojpur Government College, Barguna Government College and Patuakhali Science and Technology University participated in the competition.
Chittagong University professor Nani Gopal Das distributed crests among the participants.
SBMC debater Manisha Chakraborty was awarded the best debater.
The speakers said the incidents of sexual harassment were increasing as women were focusing through media as a commodity in the open market economy.
They suggested a radical reform in the mindset of the people through building a mass awareness of violence against and harassment of women.
BDF secretary general Mahfuzur Rahman said they held the competition with a view to creating and raising awareness against all types of violence against women as the society want the establishment of equal gender rights in Bangladesh.
UN Women programme officer Mahtab Hakim said the champions and runner-ups of divisional level contests would participate in the final level that is scheduled to be held in Dhaka on third week of February this year.
