A human chain was formed on 29 November 2012 at central Shahid Minar, Dhaka. Honorable State Minister Dr. Shirin S Chowdhury, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, had launched the program. Representatives of women’s organizations, women leader, civil society representatives including all levels men and women attended that program.

This year, when we once again took up the “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence” in Bangladesh, the air was lingered with smell of burnt flesh of hundreds of women worker killed in a garments factory blazed near Dhaka. Fire incidents in export-oriented garment factories continue to kill workers, most of them women.

Claiming such deaths toll as murder caused by the negligence of the factory authorities, BNPS demands exemplary punishment of offenders and ensuring of safety in workplaces in this year of observation of 16 days of activism. Separate rallies and human chain was organised in all of BNPS working district and sub-districts including at national level in Dhaka in participation of thousands of women and community peoples.

Including a violence free workplace for women, the rallies of BNPS also demanded proper implementation of relevant policies and laws, full ratification of CEDAW, building social resistance against unlawful Salish and fatwa, stop organised violence against women of  ethnic and religious minority groups, adopting sexual harassment policy in all educational institute and workplace as mandatory.