Are girls safe while going schools and returning home Looking through a gender lens in Bangladesh perspective

This qualitative study aims to explore how safe and secure the adolescent girls in Bangladesh are while going school and returning home by highlighting the ways in which such securities are ensured. Fifteen school going girls, their parents and three educationists were chosen using voluntary participation approach, convenience sampling and purposive sampling technique respectively. Questionnaire for the students and semi- structured interview guidelines for both parents and educationist were used as data collection tools. The concepts of street as a public space, patriarchy and gender relations serve as a lens to triangulate and analyze the data. The study revealed that, some problems i.e. lack of transport facilities, and guardians’ fear of road accidents and unavailability are common in some extent for both boys and girls but create more anxieties among the guardians of girls due to the patriarchal structures. Bullying, unwanted talks, whistling, unnecessary touches and collide, and being followed by local men were the types of gendered experiences that the girls face frequently. To ensure daughters’ safety, parents were found to spend extra money for caregivers and home rents. A clear gender power dynamics also revealed through the mothers’ sacrifices in professional life. This study would therefore hopefully lead to raise awareness among the teachers, parents and school authority on the safety and security aspects of school going girls. Apart from that, the paper has a bearing on how changing the stereotyped gendered mind-sets are vital to ensure girls’ independent movement in their proper development as a human being.

Keywords: School girls, safety and security, public space, gender