Bangladesh Mahila Parishad - Norad

25Prime Minister. There were four spontaneous demonstrations supported by thesocial movement sub-committee in 2012.Based on information available in newspapers BMP identifies incidents and respondby memoranda to relevant government ministries, frequently the Home Ministry, orto the Inspector General of Police, and political leaders. Action is taken in relation tolocal politicians, local administration and local police. For example in August 2012,action was taken on the issue of migrant women in Jordan and a memorandum sentto the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Labour and Employment, and to all thenewspapers. In most cases the impact of sending these memoranda is unknown toBMP. In some cases, however, they find that action is taken, for example in the caseof a university teacher from Sylhet whose joining letter was not accepted and theUniversity Grants Commission intervened. Alongside the memoranda, statementsare sent to the newspapers.3.4.4 Documentation and researchSince 2010, BMP has worked to strengthen its documentation and research capacity.BMP’s reference library has many users. Research is disseminated through the SAC,to departments at universities, such as the gender studies and sociology departmentat the University of Dhaka, and to national newspapers. All research reports are sentto the women affairs editor of national newspapers. Research findings are also usedin programme development, as for example when a study found that young peopleare especially affected by violence and the legal department subsequently began tomore systematically work with young people. Data collected through the regularwork of BMP is also used for research purposes, for example the study on dowryused data collected through the work of the legal department. In the case of thedowry study, this topic was selected due to dowry being a prime cause of domesticviolence.3.4.5 Media outreachOver the last few years there has been a strong increase in the number of femalejournalists, estimated to have increased from 2-3% to 20% in the last ten years.Women journalists have become more accepted in all fields of journalism. BMP hasbeen a part of this development and has prioritized strengthening its work with themedia. BMP works systematically with the media, they routinely send mediainformation about their various events, and journalists attend seminars andworkshops organises by BMP. The legal section of BMP documents violence againstwomen, including in the form of systematic newspaper clippings on VAW.BMP leaders are profiled through newspapers, TV debates and BMP’s campaigns arepromoted through TV spots. BMP is perceived by the media as an authoritativesource on issues of VAW and is often used for commentary.BMP has not only worked on its own media relations but has tried to encouragenewspapers to adopt women friendly, or gender sensitive policies, and some of themhave taken up the challenge.