New Hotline and Shortcode Services to Combat Violence Against Women
To combat violence against women, the decision has been made to launch a police ‘hotline’ service along with a ‘shortcode.’ According to Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Sheikh Md. Sajjat Ali, any incident of violence against women recorded on the "Help App" will be immediately treated as an FIR. This information was confirmed in a text message sent by the Media and Public Relations Department on Saturday, March 15, citing the DMP Commissioner.
The message states that any incident of violence against women recorded on the app will be promptly considered as an FIR.
Earlier, the government decided to introduce a police hotline service along with a shortcode to prevent violence against women. On the same day, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, informed that changes were being made to the procedure for filing online General Diaries (GD). He stated that the new system would include an online FIR process linked to the hotline and shortcode services. In this system, after downloading the profile in the call center, the call will be directly forwarded to the relevant police station. Currently, a database of police officers’ phone numbers is being prepared.
On Tuesday, the Chief Adviser’s verified Facebook post mentioned that, following the launch of the police hotline service to combat violence against women, 103 calls had been received within 18 hours.
A press release from the Chief Adviser’s press wing stated that Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser for Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology, confirmed that the government is working on the creation of a Police Command App to ensure efficient management of all police activities and secure internal communications. The project includes incident tracking software for complaint management, a shortcode for preventing violence against women, the online GD process, and online or shortcode-based filing of cases or FIRs, among other modernizing efforts. The ICT Division is providing all necessary technical support for implementing these initiatives. The prototype of the Police Command App has already been completed, and discussions for further development are ongoing.
Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb also stated that the existing national helpline ‘333’ will be extended with an additional digit, ‘3333,’ allowing users to report any violence against women. Alternatively, users can call ‘333’ and press 3 to forward the call to the police call center. Plans are in place to staff the call center with 100% female personnel to ensure that women can report incidents without hesitation. However, since the '999' emergency SOS service and its call center capacity improvements are time-consuming, this new ‘3333’ service will not be integrated into ‘999’ for the time being. The government is also considering staffing the call center for ‘3333’ entirely with female employees.
