Measuring the Effect of HERrespect: An Intervention Addressing Violence Against Female Garment Workers in Four Factories of Bangladesh

Background Violence against women (VAW) is an important public health, human rights and development issue worldwide. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common type of VAW ranging between 15% and 71% worldwide. IPV in South Asian countries is as high as 42%. Adverse consequences of spousal violence on women's health and well-being are well documented. This violence is also known to affect women's work and productivity. IPV affects not only the women, but also their children, families and the nation.

In Bangladesh, 53% of the ever-married reproductive aged women reported lifetime physical and/or sexual abuse and about a quarter of the currently married women reported exposure to this violence during the last 12 months. Common correlates of IPV in Bangladesh include young age, poverty, low education, history of wife abuse in the family, childhood experience of violence, dowry, and low spousal communication. The literature on correlates of IPV shows that, particularly in patriarchal contexts, working women are more vulnerable to IPV. Although research on IPV has gained great momentum over the last few decades, literature on IPV against working women in low income settings is still scanty. Unpublished data from icddr,b show that 70% of the garment workers aged 15 to 29 were physically and/or sexually abused by their spouses during the last 12 months, while according to the Bangladesh component of the WHO multi-country study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against 53% of urban and 62% of rural peers of them reported such violence. Studies show economic IPV against female garment workers in Bangladesh. Thus, young female garment workers are highly vulnerable to violence demanding attention of the researchers, programme implementers and policy makers.

Approximately 80% of the workforce in the garment manufacturing industry in Bangladesh is female. According to a report, about 60% of female workers experience harassment at work. Qualitative research suggests that severe emotional and economic violence is universal in this sector, while physical and sexual violence is not uncommon. Most common perpetrators of violence are mid-and low-level factory management staff.

In general, evidence on what works in addressing IPV and workplace violence against women is thin worldwide. A few sporadic interventions implemented for addressing workplace violence against female garment workers over the last few years in Bangladesh have not been rigorously studied. Although there is evidence that a combination of economic empowerment and gender interventions reduces IPV effectively there has been no attempt at measuring effect of gender interventions among female garment workers, who are relatively much more economically empowered compared to their peers. The current research proposes to evaluate HERrespect, a pilot intervention for preventing and responding to spousal and workplace violence against female garment workers by providing interactive sessions to the management and the workers on gender and violence against women and girls (VAWG).

Objectives of the study The primary objective of this study is to measure whether HERrespect intervention reduces female garment workers' experiences of: (1) Spousal physical and sexual violence and (2) Workplace violence over a period of 24 months between baseline and end-line during which the intervention is delivered in the factories.