South Korea provides the UNICEF office in Bangladesh with $1million to assist the UN agency’s activities in the country this year with a focus on gender-based violence in emergencies, particularly in Cox's Bazar where Rohingya people took shelter.
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 gender-based violence cases in the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the embassy said. 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-centered and adolescent-focused services against gender-based violence, implementing preventive measures to tackle underlying causes and offering protective favors 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 U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325.
South Korea has been working with UNICEF Bangladesh through KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) to improve Bangladeshi women and children's lives.
Between 2015 and 2019, with the financial support of $8 million 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 said they would “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 organizations.”
