8 January 2026, Bangladesh - In 2024, hundreds of trained data collectors travelled across Bangladesh as part of the Violence Against Women Survey, ensuring women’s experiences were counted, documented and understood. Among them was Tussa Chakma, a data collector deployed to the Chittagong Hill Tracts of south-eastern Bangladesh, a region marked by rugged terrain, cultural diversity and remote indigenous communities.

Unlike the flat plains that dominate much of the country, the Hill Tracts present steep hills, dense forests and long travel distances. Reaching women in these settings requires not only technical skills, but trust, cultural understanding and patience.

For Tussa, a Chakma woman herself, this was home.

“To truly understand violence against women, you have to go where women live, even when those places are hard to reach,” she said.

Ensuring a national survey is genuinely representative means reaching women across all geographies, identities and life circumstances. This was only possible through data collectors like Tussa, whose local knowledge, language skills and lived experience helped create safe spaces for women to speak.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, educated or not, living in Dhaka or in the char lands — violence happens everywhere,” Tussa explained. “We often think it happens to others, not to us. But it’s all around us.”

The 2024 Violence Against Women Survey marks the third nationally representative survey of its kind in Bangladesh, building on earlier rounds while significantly expanding its scope. For the first time, the survey captures the experiences of women with disabilities, women living in disaster-prone areas and urban slums, survivors of technology-facilitated violence, and women bearing the often-hidden economic costs of abuse.

The findings underscore the scale of the problem. More than half of ever-married women in Bangladesh have experienced at least one form of violence — physical, sexual, emotional or controlling behaviour — from a husband or intimate partner in their lifetime. Controlling behaviour alone affects 68 per cent of women, making it the most common form of husband-perpetrated violence, while emotional violence affects roughly four in ten women, frequently overlapping with other forms of abuse.

Adolescent girls and young women face the highest risks.

Tussa, a mother of two, says she “started everything late” after marrying shortly after finishing school — a reality shared by many girls across Bangladesh. While she has since built a career as a seasoned data collector, the survey confirms that early marriage does not protect girls from violence.

According to the 2024 survey, girls aged 15–19 account for 62 per cent of survivors of intimate partner or husband-perpetrated violence in the past year. By contrast, the likelihood of experiencing such violence declines sharply with age. Women aged 45–49 face around 80 per cent lower odds of experiencing intimate partner violence compared to adolescent girls.

“These findings challenge the belief that marriage ensures safety,” Tussa said. “For many girls, it increases their risk.”

“Every interview is difficult to begin,” Tussa recalled. “You have to earn trust.”

Once women felt safe, many shared experiences that stayed with her long after the interviews ended.

“The women I met come back to me in flashes,” she said, recalling one survivor who carefully recorded her husband’s acts of violence in a notebook, hoping to identify patterns and prevent the next episode.

“She was trying to protect herself,” Tussa explained. “Our role was not to judge or interpret; it was to listen with empathy and make sure her experience was recorded accurately.”

Fear emerged as a recurring theme, and the data mirrors this reality. Women who reported being “most of the time” afraid of their husbands faced nine times higher odds of experiencing violence, while those who said they were “always” afraid faced a 15-fold increase in risk.

This fear is not incidental. It is often sustained by controlling behaviour, emotional abuse and isolation, forming the foundation of violent relationships.

By documenting these realities, the 2024 Violence Against Women Survey pulls back the curtain on violence that often remains hidden behind closed doors. The evidence it generates is critical to strengthening prevention efforts, improving survivor-centred services and informing policies that protect women and girls at every stage of life.

Behind this national effort are women like Tussa who navigated difficult terrain, listened without judgement and helped ensure that survivors’ experiences were not erased.

The 2024 Violence Against Women Survey, conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics with technical support from UNFPA, is available in full here:

https://bangladesh.unfpa.org/en/2024-violence-against-women-survey