South Korea has provided $1.0 million to the UNICEF office in Bangladesh to assist UNICEF's activities in the country this year with a focus on gender-based violence (GBV) in emergencies, particularly in Cox's Bazar.
This assistance will help protect women, adolescents, and girls in the Rohingya refugee camp and the host community from gender-based violence and its consequences, especially amid the increasing GBV cases in the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, said the South Korean Embassy in Dhaka on Tuesday.
Since the outbreak of the Rohingya crisis in 2017, the Korean government has contributed $3.7 million to UNICEF Bangladesh's activities for providing access to survivor-centred and adolescent-focused services against GBV, implementing preventive measures to tackle underlying causes of GBV, and offering protective favours for adolescent boys and girls.
This assistance is also in line with Korea's "Action with Women and Peace" initiative launched in 2018 to contribute more actively to the international efforts to uphold and strengthen women's rights, particularly in a conflict situation as stipulated in the UN Security Council Resolution 1325.
The Republic of Korea has been working with UNICEF Bangladesh through KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) to improve Bangladeshi women's and children's lives, according to UNB.
Between 2015 and 2019, with the financial support of 8 million USD by KOICA, UNICEF has implemented the "Project for Improving Effective Coverage of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Interventions and Reducing Preventable Child Death" in Tangail and Khulna District.
The Embassy of the Republic of Korea will continue to make its best effort to improve the lives of women and children in Bangladesh in various ways, in particular through its collaboration with international organisations.
