violence and bring perpetrators of such violence to justice. The Commission further recommends improvement of legal, physical and psychological support for victims of sexual and gender-based violence and an increase in the number of shelters. Women’s Empowerment 30. The Commission appreciates that Bangladesh ranks 1st in South Asia as per the Global Gender Gap Index of WEF for consecutive seven times, the last being in 2022. Nevertheless the Commission is aware of the fact that inequality between men and women in the workplace has been a challenge for Bangladesh. Adding to this problem, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the existing inequalities and thus made women more vulnerable in places of work. Women working from home during this period were overburdened with the sudden increase in childcare responsibilities because of the shutdown of schools and other household chores. The boundary between home and work became blurred since their domestic roles were less defined. It compelled many women to take a career break, resign, or take part-time jobs, not invest time in career progression, etc., due to challenges regarding the work-family balance due to societal, cultural, family, and gender norms. A study shows that employers took advantage of lockdown and shutdown policies to terminate the employment of workers. Women workers in general, pregnant and older women in particular, were disproportionately targeted and were terminated without the compensation they were entitled to under the labour law of Bangladesh.6 The lack of proper monitoring mechanisms under the existing laws accelerates the joblessness of women during the pandemic. Legal and institutional mechanisms would combat the challenges working women faced during COVID-19. 31. The Commission recommends that programmatic action be taken to raise awareness of gender equality in all spheres of life, public and private, as well as legal regime be strengthened to enable women to claim equal rights. Violence against Children 32. There are instances of incidents of violence against children, especially girl child every year. Violence against children includes rape, gang rape, attempt to rape, beating, sexual harassment, pornography, online sexual abuse, forced prostitution, etc.7 Recently, many male children have also been reported to have become victims of rape at their educational institutions. The Commission has received a number of complaints relating to violence against children which are given below: Types of Complaints Received Violence against Children 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 40 07 04 01 00 Muhammad Azizul Islam and others, ‘The Impact of Covid-19 on Women Workers in the Bangladesh Garment Industry Research Report’ (2022), available at<https://media.businesshumanrights.org/media/documents/Women-Bangladesh-garment-industry-report-final-smaller.pdf>accessed 4 April 2023. 7 ‘Status Report: Violence against Children in Bangladesh’ (Save the Children 2020), available at<https://bangladesh.savethechildren.net/sites/bangladesh.savethechildren.net/files/library/VNR%20Status%20 Report.pdf> accessed 3 April 2023. 6 9