Euro 9 lakh Dutch help to curb violence against women

The Dutch contribution, approximately Euro 900,000, will come over a period of five years under an agreement signed between the Netherlands government and the Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Services (RDRS).

Dutch Ambassador Kees Beemsterboer and Kamaluddin Akbar, Executive Director of RDRS, signed the agreement yesterday at RDRS Dhaka office.

"The focus of RDRS activities will be on legal and institutional initiatives for combating discrimination against women under the second phase of the LEGAL (Legal Education and Gender Aware Leadership) programme," says the agreement document.

These will consist of strategic, prevention, access and referral activities such as registering births, working to prevent early marriages, creating awareness regarding prohibition of dowry and ensuring marriages are registered

The Netherlands has identified Bangladesh as one of 36 countries for developing a long-term, bilateral development cooperation relationship that began shortly after independence in 1971.

Current Netherlands assistance is focussed on social sectors like health, basic education, integrated water resources management and rural electrification with gender and governance as crosscutting themes. The annual turnover of Dutch aid in Bangladesh currently stands at Euro 50 million.