Publication

Human security is often said to consist of two elements – freedom from fear, and freedom from want. In Bangladesh, many of the most obvious development challenges relate to freedom from want – unemployment, poverty, food insecurity and lack of education and healthcare. But these are intertwined with serious challenges relating to freedom from fear – political and criminal violence, abuse of women and children and violence related to drug and alcohol abuse. In fact, separating threats to ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’, and identifying what makes a community ‘safe’, is never an easy task. In different contexts, the real and perceived safety of individuals and communities may be undermined by anything from poverty to criminal gangs, from unemployment to drug abuse.