Domestic and dowry related violence increased about 2.0 per cent in the country during the Covid-19 pandemic starting from March 08 to July 31 compared to the pre-Covid period from October 14 to March 07 last year, according to a latest report.
The number of incidents of domestic and dowry related violence was 228 in the Covid-19 pandemic while it was 224 in the pre-Covid time.
A project styled The Bangladesh Peace Observatory (BPO) under The Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS) of Dhaka University revealed the report.
Barishal and Rajshahi divisions have the highest incident rates of such violence, the BPO report shows.
Apart from this, the BPO also revealed that as many as 202 women were killed in the last seven months from January to July 2020.
Law enforcement agencies also arrested 152 people in connection with such incidents during the period, it showed in the report.
The BPO has prepared the report based on receiving information from 25 media outlets, including daily newspapers, national and regional, television and online. However, this information has not been verified from the field level.
The BPO has been publishing regular reports on a number of issues with the financial support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).