Source: The Guardian

Violence against women is not recognised in MDG3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women, but it remains a major obstacle for development.

When a man threw hydrochloric acid in Nurbanu's face, she was in her father's home. It was the first night of Taraweeh prayers and her family had gone to the mosque to pray. She heard a motorcycle pull up outside, and watched through the darkness as a man dismounted and approached her, his hands behind his back. It wasn't until he was standing in front of her, a split second before he threw the acid, that she realised the man was her husband.

It is now almost two years later and Nurbanu, a softly spoken woman of 35, is sitting under the shade of her corrugated iron kitchen roof in Shatkhira, south west Bangladesh. The acid has left the skin on her face thin and creased like tissue paper, and she is holding her daughter Mallika's hand – something she has become accustomed to because the acid left her blind, and she needs Mallika's guidance around her home.

Eight days before the attack Nurbanu had found the courage to divorce her husband of eighteen years. He had been violent towards her from the beginning of their marriage, and had humiliated her time and time again with his infidelity.

"One day I caught him having intercourse with another girl," she recalls. "So I left him and went to my father's house." It was a brave decision for a mother of three in a society where traditionally women do not make their own choices.

Bangladesh is considered a star performer in the developing world. Not only does it boast a growing economy, but it is also on track to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals, including MDG3, Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. Today there is equal sex enrollment in primary and lower secondary schools, and in 2004, the number of seats in parliament was raised from 300 to 345, with the addition of 45 reserved for women. It even has a female Prime Minister, Skeikh Hasina.

But despite this progress, violence continues to destroy the lives of many Bangladeshi women and girls. According to a WHO study in 2005, more than 50 percent of women have experienced some form of domestic violence. An acid attack takes place every two days – the overwhelming majority of victims being women who have rejected marriage proposals or sexual advances, or upset their husbands.

Like all acts of domestic violence, the acid attack served Nurbanu's husband one purpose: control. Today she and her children have returned to his home. Unable to work as she'd intended because she cannot see – and with no welfare system to support her, she had no other option. Even her father could not help her, unable to provide for her and her children.

"I have nowhere else to go and no one will take me in," she says, a tear pushing its way out between her eyelids and collecting in a fold of skin on her cheek. "I can't even serve rice on my own plate. My daughter has to do it for me."

Violence against women is not highlighted in either the targets or the indicators of any of the Millennium Development Goals. Yet among women aged between 15 and 44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. For Nurbanu, it ripped away any chance she had of taking control of her life.

Nurbanu's children are also suffering. Of the three, not one of them goes to school. Her sons – 12 and 14 – are laborers, while 11 year-old Mallika is responsible for the household chores Nurbanu can no longer do. For Nurbanu this is devastating – she longs for them to have the chances an education brings.

"I tell them to go to school all the time," she says, stroking Mallika's short black hair. "I never wanted them to stop going to school. I told them regardless of how I live they should still go. My son gives all his earnings to his father. He takes the money from them."

The situation is not uncommon. Evidence shows that when women earn and manage their own money they are more likely to spend it educating and feeding their children. As it stands, there are millions of children like Nurbanu's who could and should play are part in their country's economic development but don't, because of discrimination against their mothers.

This is why the UN's newest agency, UN Women, created in July 2010, has a major role to play in global development. As Michelle Bachelet, UN Women's Under-Secretary-General explains: "In all countries where women have access to good education, good jobs, land and other assets, there is stronger growth, lower maternal mortality, improved child nutrition."

At an event in UK parliament on 17th May, Bachelet outlined UN Women's five key priorities: women's economic empowerment, women's political participation, ending violence against women, engaging women in peace and post-conflict processes, and engaging them in national development planning and budgeting. It is a holistic approach, and in so being it could improve millions of lives around the world.

Where MDG3 falls short by focusing primarily on girls' education, the creation of UN Women sends the message it is time to get serious about every aspect of women's empowerment, including violence against women.

In October last year domestic violence was criminalised in Bangladesh. Governed by a woman, and so successful in its progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, it must now make sure this law is enforced – and if it isn't UN Women must hold the government and the rest of the UN system to account.

It is not enough to achieve equal sex enrolment in schools - Skeikh Hasina must keep the momentum for women's rights in Bangladesh moving and ensure women are safe in their homes. Not just because women like Nurbanu deserve better, but because as Former Secretary General Kofi Annan recognised in 2005, "there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women".