Bangladesh

Safe Home Project

More than 3000 women, men and children are living in the brothel at Goalundo. They are amongst the most 'invisible' children in Bangladesh society. The girls are viewed as future sex workers and tend to be frequently abused and subject to rape and sexual assault. In general, these children are socialised to accept the brothel environment as ‘normal’ from early in their childhood and many have known nothing else.

The Safe Home was established in 1997 to provide an alternative home for adolescent girls to provide care and protection, and an opportunity to continue their schooling.

The need for the Home became obvious when five students from Save the Children Australia’s project school ran away from the brothel and hid in the office of a partner NGO.  The girl students feared for their friend, who was being compelled by her mother to become a sex worker.  The project began with these five girls and now has the capacity to accommodate 50 residents.

The goals of the project are to:

• provide secure surroundings, on neutral ground, for girls who wish to leave the brothel voluntarily, and who have the support of their mothers to do so 
• to protect female children from sexual abuse and provide them with skills to choose a future which is socially acceptable.

Download the Safe Home project fact sheet [Adobe PDF, 127 Kb].

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