The Long Road to Achieving full Women’s rights in Bangladesh
By: Thu Ale
Long before Bangladesh’s independence, various women’s rights organizations successfully challenged gender discrimination in the political, social, economic, and cultural environment. The women’s movement in Bangladesh is distinguished by its wide range of objectives, strategies, and formation processes. However, power, resources, and influence are still unequally distributed between men and women, as the structures in these spheres are frequently more favorable to men. Furthermore, women’s rights movements face a growing global backlash against emancipation and equal opportunity for all. Increasing inequalities, natural disasters, and extremism are examples of additional challenges to women’s rights movements at the national and global levels.
When looking through the history of the unequal progression of women in Bangladesh, it can be traced back to the patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal societies that control and determine their opportunity based on their class, gender, and location. Despite the patriarchal social framework, in 1952, the women of East Bengal did not hesitate to rebel against social norms and family opposition in order to fight alongside men for official recognition of the Bengali language. Not only that, but the world watched in awe in 1971 as Bengali women exemplified bravery by running into the battlefield to fight in Bangladesh’s Liberation War, shattering stereotypes in the process. Without a doubt, Bangladeshi women have repeatedly demonstrated that the female gender is not synonymous with weakness.
Over the last decade, the government of Bangladesh has enacted a slew of policies aimed at advancing women’s rights. The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs has increased widow allowances, reduced the burden on urban lactating mothers, and provided job training in fields such as agriculture and electronics. In addition to that, in 2011, the National Women Development Policy aimed to establish equal rights for men and women, but it also included specific goals such as support for female entrepreneurs. As follows, the government established a 50-member National Women and Child Development Council, chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to oversee the implementation of the development policy.
Although the government has given more women the opportunity to participate in politics, it is still a male-dominated field in politics. Hence, the fight for women’s equal representation and opportunity as their male counterparts persists until this day. As such, when further examining Bangladesh’s model of women’s political empowerment, it is revealed that only 22 of the 350 seats in Bangladesh’s parliament are currently held by directly elected female legislators, with the remaining 50 reserved for women who are not directly elected.
Furthermore, the most major issue that is facing the safety of women in Bangladesh is the continuation of violence against women and child marriage. According to Nawal M Nour, Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Chair, argues that child marriage ends a girl’s childhood, interrupts her education, and has an impact on her health and the health of her children. This is especially important to know since, in Bangladesh, almost 60% of girls marry before the age of 18, and what is even more heartbreaking is that their husbands’ families may abandon them if they are unable to bear children. Not only that, but domestic violence affects two out of every three married women in Bangladesh at some point in their lives. It is important to note that the government responded by enacting the Domestic Violence Prevention and Protection Act in 2010 and the Child Marriage Restraint Act in 2017, but the results of these efforts have yet to be seen.
In essence, Bangladesh still has a long way to go before both men and women have equal access to power. Until then, one must continue to work to change the status quo in order to achieve a society in which women can live freely and without fear.
Works Cited
Ganguly, Meenakshi. “Why Is It so Difficult for Bangladeshi Women to Get Justice?” Human Rights Watch, 26 Nov. 2020, www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/25/why-it-so-difficult-bangladeshi-women-get-justice.
Meraji, Nusrat Nasim. “The Fight for Women’s Rights in Bangladesh.” Asia Dialogue, 18 Sept. 2018, theasiadialogue.com/2018/09/19/the-fight-for-womens-rights-in-bangladesh/.
Nazneen, S. (2017). The Women’s Movement in Bangladesh: A Short History and Current Debates. Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung .
Nour, Nawal M. “Child marriage: a silent health and human rights issue.” Reviews in obstetrics & gynecology vol. 2,1 (2009): 51–6.
Philipp, Jennifer. “6 Facts about Women’s Rights in Bangladesh.” The Borgen Project, Jennifer Philipp Https://Borgenproject.org/Wp-Content/Uploads/The_Borgen_Project_Logo_small.Jpg, 5 Oct. 2020, borgenproject.org/womens-rights-in-bangladesh/.
