Bangladesh Mahila Parishad - Norad

to six months, and has also been active in campaigning for breast feeding, inparticular for women working in the garment sector. Another campaign issue forBMP has been women friendly hospitals making sure women have equal access tohospitals as there are much fewer hospital beds available for women than for men.Moreover, BMP has worked to promote forensic laboratories at hospitals, one stopcrisis centers, as well as burn and acid units in hospitals. As part of this work toaddress VAW they have taken part in public protests (human chains).The health sub-committee also works to raise awareness in schools on adolescenthealth issues and has a target of six programmes each year for schools, with a focuson adolescent health issues. The district committees (there are 54 district health subcommittees)also organize this type of outreach programmes.BMP associated doctors have expert status in relation to the media and areinterviewed regularly by the media.In the view of the health sub-committee, there is scope for a lot more focusedapproach on the larger issues of women’s health, and to build on BMP’s particularstrength in awareness-raising and training. They see BMP’s network within the healthsector as effective, reliable, and consistent, while being able to work with the peopleas well as with policy makers. However, there is a very limited budget and no paidstaff for the health sub-committee. In view of the large number of events alreadytaking place and the workload involved, scaling up awareness programmes and takingup the larger issues of women’s health, would require more funding and paid staff atthe head office.233.4 Cross-cutting activities3.4.1 Advocacy; achieving policy influence at the national levelBMP has played an important role in agenda setting and in influencing policyprocesses as suggested above. At the national level, ministries have set up a numberof consultative mechanisms for dialogue with civil society organizations, and BMPhas been an active participant in several of these mechanisms. BMP also holdsbilateral meetings with government ministries to raise issues of importance to genderand human rights, for example with the Health Ministry, Education Ministry,Ministry of Home Affairs etc. Government representatives are invited for discussionmeetings to move the agenda on human rights issues. At the district level, advocacywork also takes place in a more practical manner especially to address cases of VAW.For example in Belabo, the chairman of the jury board for family mediation caseswas also the chair of the UP, another jury board members was an ex-UP member.BMP aims to hold the government accountable for implementation of laws andregulations, and also trains government staff in new laws. The Minister for Womenand Child Affairs, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, mentioned the National Women’sDevelopment Policy and the law on domestic violence as examples of BMP’s