This study was aimed to estimate the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in a sample of 226 women with disabilities living in four different districts of Bangladesh. It also explored the physical and psychological suffering of women experiencing violence and their various coping strategies. A cross-sectional survey was carried out with 226 women with disabilities to measure the prevalence of IPV, and 16 in-depth interviews were conducted to document in detail the experiences of violence encountered by the abused women. Among the 226 women interviewed in the survey, about 84% reported ever having experienced at least one act of emotional abuse, physical, or sexual violence from their partner during their lifetime. Women who were older (aged above 32 years), separated, and members of economic/savings group were more likely to report ever having experienced any IPV than women with disabilities who were younger (aged 32 years and less), married, and not members of economic/savings group. Most of the women experiencing violence reported sufferings from physical and psychological problems. Of all the women who experienced violence, less than half (45%) reported seeking support to minimize or avoid violence experiences. However, seeking support from informal network such as family and relatives was commonly reported by many (81.4%) of them. Study findings suggest that women with disabilities who possess poor socio-economic status coupled with economic dependency on husbands' income and wide-spread social stigma against disability make them vulnerable to IPV. Future interventions to address IPV against women with disabilities should include building community knowledge of disability and IPV, countering the pervasive social stigma against disabilities, and improving the socio-economic conditions of women with disabilities through education and employment.

Research conducted in various parts of the globe suggests that young people who can openly communicate with their parents about sexuality benefit in many ways. Correspondingly, in Bangladesh, the lack of an open communication on sexuality in the youth-parent relationship is considered a barrier to ensuring young people's sexual and reproductive health and overall well-being. Taking 'silence' as a core concept, this paper investigates what silence on sexuality means to Bangladeshi young people in their relationship with parents. It draws on findings from an ethnographic study conducted among 72 middle-class boys and girls aged between 15 and 19 years and 18 parents living in Dhaka over a year between 2016 and 2017. The findings suggest that silence is not always perceived as problematic by young people, and this is particularly true for topics related to sexual pleasure. This paper challenges the monolithic understanding that silence is necessarily bad and hinders young people from getting what they need. It offers an additional conceptual understanding to silence for studying sexuality among youths and designing interventions for their sexual and reproductive well-being.

The high prevalence of child marriage in many South Asian countries is usually attributed to poverty, lack of access to education and economic opportunities and gender inequitable cultural norms. Yet in Bangladesh, despite economic growth, mass female education and concerted efforts to eliminate child marriage, its prevalence remains very high. This paper explores community-level perceptions, attitudes and practices relating to child marriage in a rural setting in Bangladesh with the aim of understanding the collective discourses of child marriage in the country and identify the factors shaping these. The study was based on exploratory sequential mixed-method research, with qualitative data collected through group discussions and interviews with 64 participants and quantitative survey data from 3344 participants from the Rangpur district of northern Bangladesh in 2014. The findings suggest that, in addition to the already identified drivers, the notion of a ‘good match’, where the wife is subservient to her husband, is one of the main motivations for marrying off girls early in this region of Bangladesh. Reducing poverty and educating girls may not be adequate to address the persistent problem of child marriage in all Bangladeshi contexts and emphasis needs to be given to transforming the prevailing idea of a ‘good match’ to one of an ‘equal match’.