The potential impact of media on the public is apparent by the kind of calls that Babul Sardar receives. A journalist with Jano Kantha, one of the major and widely read newspapers in Bangladesh, and the general secretary of the Bagerhaat Human Rights Commission, Babul Sardar is a Change Maker to reckon with. Speaking of himself, he says, “I am still to be cured of my patriarchal inclinations myself. But because of my profession, I always come across cases where women were abused. I often receive calls for help when women are abused. I began reporting about women’s rights, although I was ignorant about gender and violence against women myself. Now I try to help as much as I can and then initiate them into understanding gender and violence against women issues.”

“Recently, I received a phone call from a lady in the hospital. She is a nurse there and had been beaten up by her husband within the hospital. She was in a bad shape. I immediately called her husband, a professor. I told him what he had done was completely wrong. The professor was piqued to hear this. We had a heated exchange. He told me it was none of my business because she was his wife and therefore his “property”. He said he could “do whatever he wanted with her.” I retorted that he beat her in the hospital where she is an employee and not his wife. He, I argued, had therefore committed a crime against a nurse at the hospital. This could definitely get him in jail. That did it. The man was suddenly aware that this was no small issue. I cannot do anything directly to change the situation. The lady will have to do it herself. And, of course, there are many people to support her. Facilitating change is a long process and nothing is achieved immediately. One has to be committed.”