More to be done for improving the lot of women

Conditions of women in Bangladesh have improved on the whole compared to the past. But there is no denying that much more needs to be done

Recently on the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women a study was released at a seminar. According to the study the number of incidents of violence against women is declining. Well, that’s a good news right? Not really, because the same study says that while number of violent incidents has come down the viciousness of such attacks has actually increased.
It is not too uncommon to see  newspaper reports on gang-rape where objects like metal rods are inserted in the genitals, uprooting of eyes, throwing boiling water (or even daal or lentil) on a woman’s body. And off course the brutal fatwa punishments meted out by village elders. Even four year old girls are raped.
Earlier this year a young woman was beaten just because she apparently looked like a porn actor. As a journalist you learn to expect the unexpected. Yet this particular incident sent shivers down my spine. C’mon, you are punished because you look like a certain infamous person? How depraved and barbaric can one get? And what next? Will these people now hang a woman because she played a character with loose morals in a jatra play?
Well I for one wouldn’t be surprised. As I was not really surprised hearing about the young woman sexually assaulted recently by a bus helper inside the running vehicle. At least the woman had the guts to report the incident and the concerned police officer was conscientious enough to accept the report and take prompt action. As is well known the majority of such cases go unreported.    
Bangladesh like many countries with Muslim majority population has a serious image problem particularly in the West. The people of those countries, no doubt often with sweeping generalisations, are termed as regressive and living the middle-ages with obscurantist views about everything that has to do with modernism. Especially the generally held view in the West (and many developed countries elsewhere) is that Muslim countries are the worst places to live for women.
This indeed is more than a bit unfair but the happenings in many Muslim countries have done little to change that image. Antiquated and barbaric laws in some countries like Saudi Arabia (where for instance women are still not allowed to drive), Iran (where stoning to death is not uncommon), Pakistan (where village leaders’ fatwas have ruined the lives of many women), Sudan (where the brutal custom of female genital utilisation is the norm rather than the exception), Afghanistan (where women can be flogged and worse just for not covering their heads), etc. indeed make the lives of women intolerable.
Turkey was a glorious exception in the Islamic world. Kemal Ataturk revolutionised Turkish society in the 1920s and women there enjoyed a freedom unheard of in most Islamic countries. Ataturk was a great, charismatic leader who actually became the modern face of Islam in Muslim countries throughout the world. The national poet of Bangladesh was moved enough by the man and the reforms he carried out to pen the famous poem titled ‘Kamal tune Kamal kiya bhai’ which means ‘Brother Kamal you have done wonders.
For this writer the fact that Turkey is doing away with many policies of the great man is unfortunate and sad. The current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent utterances about women are not equal to men have sent a message that Turkey is on its way to becoming a radical fundamentalist country. It may well be that he was merely playing to his support base, made up of ultra-conservative Turks. However these remarks run counter to Turkey’s secular history, with women having had the right to vote since the 1930s – earlier than in countries like France, Greece and Belgium.
Compare that to now, when the World Economic Forum put Turkey 120th of 136 countries surveyed in the global gender gap index last year. This was the lowest of any country in Europe and central Asia. His own daughter, Sumeyye, was in the audience as he said that motherhood was the primary role of women – he has called upon every woman in Turkey to have three children – and has described women’s “delicate natures” as precluding them from doing tough agricultural jobs.
Ataturk gave Turkey a forward-thinking approach in which success was based on ability rather than gender. President Erdogan’s comments seem to be sending the country in the opposite direction. Erdogan has also drawn the ire of feminist groups for declaring that every woman in Turkey should have three children and with proposals to limit abortion rights and birth-control pills.
In India Mus­lims are a sizeable minority and they have enough problems as it is. However in an bewildering statement recently  the Vice Chance­llor of the Aligarh Mus­lim Univer­sity, Lt General (retd) Zameeruddin Shah said “"If we allow girls into the library, there will be four times more boys." And then he restricted women’s entry to the libraries. When such a responsible person makes this kind of an outlandish remark it is easy to imagine the impact it has on the image of Indian Muslims.   
Now let us turn our attention to Bangladesh. Bangladesh has an image of a moderate Muslim nation and rightly so. While much still needs to be done women here have braved odds and have become leaders in various fields. In most urban areas women lead a relatively free existence. Even in many rural areas women are going out and working to earn a living for their families. The women working force is growing exponentially here. And not only are women confined to ‘traditional jobs’ like teaching, nursing, etc. We now have women combat troops and reputable scientists.
The number of girls who get schooled has increased much more than the proportion of boys. And both the boom in the garment industry and the arrival of micro credit have, over the past 20 years, put money into women’s pockets—from which it is more likely to be spent on health, education and better food. Many female workers in the garment sector today earn more than their husbands, who work as porters or unskilled labourers or are unemployed.
So it came as a shock when a ruling party MP recently put the blame of rape, sexual harassment and even divorces on women. For the MP it was the way women dress these days which encourages the men to rape or harass them. Bemoaning the increasing divorce rate Momin said that the women’s lack of patience and unwillingness to compromise is at fault. The MP did not say anything about just why women should compromise and tolerate to stay in abusive relationships.  
 Sometime back a senior police officer in Bangladesh, while talking to a reporter of a foreign magazine blamed the clothing choice of women for causing rape. The police officers in charge of a regional police station in Sylhet talking to journalists blamed Bollywood films for encouraging women to wear “revealing” outfits, which he said would in-turn lead to them being raped. “Foreign media, such as Indian TV and films, are watched by our children, who then want to wear these revealing outfits,”.
“That’s the issue. We follow Islamic laws and rules here. I think if girls cover themselves up, I would be far less attracted to them and they towards me.” The officer then told the reporter, who was wearing a headscarf and long robe, that she was not wearing enough to avoid rape: "It's not enough. More than that," he said. These remarks condone social manipulation and justify inequality in its most blatant form.
Unfortunately despite continuous efforts by Bangladeshi women’s rights groups and civil society, the legal system remains inaccessible for the majority of women. population. The legal system in our country has failed to reach the ordinary masses. Neither the government nor the NGOs or any legal system is physically or financially accessible to the majority of the people. They simply cannot afford it. So the primitive a distorted form Sharia law takes advantage of that in the name of salish, or arbitrary rulings.
The so-called clerics and local village leaders take advantage of the situation in the name of religion. Violence against women is a crime that cannot be justified on the basis of fatwas. The self-appointed givers of fatwa have no authority for their proclamations. Also what these statements fail to clarify is a fundamental misconception about fatwa themselves.
Despite sporadic responses from law enforcement agencies, and in some cases high-level interventions by the Prime Minister's Office providing medical treatment to the survivors, no systematic efforts have really been undertaken to address such cases. Such extra-judicial punishments such as whipping and lashing and caning as well as forced ostracism within the village constitute grave and egregious violations of the fundamental right to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment as guaranteed under Article 35(5) of the Constitution and the imposition and execution of such extra-judicial punishments by persons acting without any authority of law clearly constitutes a violation of the fundamental right of all persons to be treated in accordance with law, as guaranteed under Article 31 of the Constitution.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on May12, 2011 ruled that fatwa or religious edicts could only be pronounced by persons properly educated in religious matters, but no one could be forced to accept it, in the following terms: "No person can pronounce a fatwa which violates or affects the rights or reputation or dignity of any person which is covered by the law of the land," It added: "[A] fatwa on religious matters only may be given by the properly educated persons which may be accepted only voluntarily but any coercion or undue influence in any form is forbidden." The judgement further pointed out that "no punishment including physical violence or mental torture in any form can be imposed or implicated on anybody in pursuance of [a] fatwa."
The abovementioned verdict of the Apex Court of Bangladesh in the fatwa case and the High Court judgement against fatwa and related advocacy work against fatwa, are definitely one step forward in order to protect women's rights in Bangladesh and this would eventually lead to incremental achievements for legal empowerment of women in the country. The judgement in the fatwa case demonstrates the positive approach by the judiciary and substantiates the inalienable fundamental human rights irrespective of gender.
However even now dozens of fatwas are issued under (the distorted version of the) Sharia law each year by village clergy in Bangladesh. There are reports of women dying after being caned publicly based on rumours and allegations.
The government should take urgent measures to make sure that religious fatwas and traditional dispute resolution methods do not result in extrajudicial punishments. The authorities should initiate a massive awareness campaign against extrajudicial punishments in the name of fatwas. Among other measures the government should educate everyone in schools, colleges, and madrasas about the fact that punishments under the garb of fatwas are illegal and regularly publicize these messages through print and electronic media.
Bangladeshis have always felt pride of our existing family system compared to the West, if the mal-treatments on women goes on and the ailments of the women go unaddressed or poorly addressed, sooner or later we will face tremendous challenges to maintain the pride, as the confidence on the family system is by now starting  to  deteriorate and multi-faceted social calamities are coming to the fore.
The real menace is not in fostering  women education or women empowerment,  it lies in our age-old, futile, exploitative mind-sets towards women. In Bangladesh women have been the vehicle for reducing poverty but often the value of their  contribution is of secondary consideration.
Economic growth has not resulted in automatic parity for men and women in society. Empowerment transcends economic equality in its simplest sense. Getting girls into school does not mean that they are equal to boys in a particular cultural setting if job opportunities remain segregated by gender.
Education undeniably has an inherent value, but it is also a stepping stone into the world of work, and for gender equality really to exist, that stone must lead to the same shore for men and women alike.
Although women leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, have been governing Bangladesh since 1991, ordinary women have not obtained complete rights and security.

The writer is Assistant Editor of The Independent and can be contacted at: [email protected]

More to be done for improving the lot of women

Conditions of women in Bangladesh have improved on the whole compared to the past. But there is no denying that much more needs to be done

Recently on the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women a study was released at a seminar. According to the study the number of incidents of violence against women is declining. Well, thats a good news right? Not really, because the same study says that while number of violent incidents has come down the viciousness of such attacks has actually increased. It is not too uncommon to see newspaper reports on gang-rape where objects like metal rods are inserted in the genitals, uprooting of eyes, throwing boiling water (or even daal or lentil) on a womans body. And off course the brutal fatwa punishments meted out by village elders. Even four year old girls are raped. Earlier this year a young woman was beaten just because she apparently looked like a porn actor. As a journalist you learn to expect the unexpected. Yet this particular incident sent shivers down my spine. Cmon, you are punished because you look like a certain infamous person? How depraved and barbaric can one get? And what next? Will these people now hang a woman because she played a character with loose morals in a jatra play? Well I for one wouldnt be surprised. As I was not really surprised hearing about the young woman sexually assaulted recently by a bus helper inside the running vehicle. At least the woman had the guts to report the incident and the concerned police officer was conscientious enough to accept the report and take prompt action. As is well known the majority of such cases go unreported. Bangladesh like many countries with Muslim majority population has a serious image problem particularly in the West. The people of those countries, no doubt often with sweeping generalisations, are termed as regressive and living the middle-ages with obscurantist views about everything that has to do with modernism. Especially the generally held view in the West (and many developed countries elsewhere) is that Muslim countries are the worst places to live for women. This indeed is more than a bit unfair but the happenings in many Muslim countries have done little to change that image. Antiquated and barbaric laws in some countries like Saudi Arabia (where for instance women are still not allowed to drive), Iran (where stoning to death is not uncommon), Pakistan (where village leaders fatwas have ruined the lives of many women), Sudan (where the brutal custom of female genital utilisation is the norm rather than the exception), Afghanistan (where women can be flogged and worse just for not covering their heads), etc. indeed make the lives of women intolerable. Turkey was a glorious exception in the Islamic world. Kemal Ataturk revolutionised Turkish society in the 1920s and women there enjoyed a freedom unheard of in most Islamic countries. Ataturk was a great, charismatic leader who actually became the modern face of Islam in Muslim countries throughout the world. The national poet of Bangladesh was moved enough by the man and the reforms he carried out to pen the famous poem titled Kamal tune Kamal kiya bhai which means Brother Kamal you have done wonders. For this writer the fact that Turkey is doing away with many policies of the great man is unfortunate and sad. The current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans recent utterances about women are not equal to men have sent a message that Turkey is on its way to becoming a radical fundamentalist country. It may well be that he was merely playing to his support base, made up of ultra-conservative Turks. However these remarks run counter to Turkeys secular history, with women having had the right to vote since the 1930s earlier than in countries like France, Greece and Belgium. Compare that to now, when the World Economic Forum put Turkey 120th of 136 countries surveyed in the global gender gap index last year. This was the lowest of any country in Europe and central Asia. His own daughter, Sumeyye, was in the audience as he said that motherhood was the primary role of women he has called upon every woman in Turkey to have three children and has described womens delicate natures as precluding them from doing tough agricultural jobs. Ataturk gave Turkey a forward-thinking approach in which success was based on ability rather than gender. President Erdogans comments seem to be sending the country in the opposite direction. Erdogan has also drawn the ire of feminist groups for declaring that every woman in Turkey should have three children and with proposals to limit abortion rights and birth-control pills. In India Muslims are a sizeable minority and they have enough problems as it is. However in an bewildering statement recently the Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, Lt General (retd) Zameeruddin Shah said If we allow girls into the library, there will be four times more boys. And then he restricted womens entry to the libraries. When such a responsible person makes this kind of an outlandish remark it is easy to imagine the impact it has on the image of Indian Muslims. Now let us turn our attention to Bangladesh. Bangladesh has an image of a moderate Muslim nation and rightly so. While much still needs to be done women here have braved odds and have become leaders in various fields. In most urban areas women lead a relatively free existence. Even in many rural areas women are going out and working to earn a living for their families. The women working force is growing exponentially here. And not only are women confined to traditional jobs like teaching, nursing, etc. We now have women combat troops and reputable scientists. The number of girls who get schooled has increased much more than the proportion of boys. And both the boom in the garment industry and the arrival of micro credit have, over the past 20 years, put money into womens pocketsfrom which it is more likely to be spent on health, education and better food. Many female workers in the garment sector today earn more than their husbands, who work as porters or unskilled labourers or are unemployed. So it came as a shock when a ruling party MP recently put the blame of rape, sexual harassment and even divorces on women. For the MP it was the way women dress these days which encourages the men to rape or harass them. Bemoaning the increasing divorce rate Momin said that the womens lack of patience and unwillingness to compromise is at fault. The MP did not say anything about just why women should compromise and tolerate to stay in abusive relationships. Sometime back a senior police officer in Bangladesh, while talking to a reporter of a foreign magazine blamed the clothing choice of women for causing rape. The police officers in charge of a regional police station in Sylhet talking to journalists blamed Bollywood films for encouraging women to wear revealing outfits, which he said would in-turn lead to them being raped. Foreign media, such as Indian TV and films, are watched by our children, who then want to wear these revealing outfits,. Thats the issue. We follow Islamic laws and rules here. I think if girls cover themselves up, I would be far less attracted to them and they towards me. The officer then told the reporter, who was wearing a headscarf and long robe, that she was not wearing enough to avoid rape: Its not enough. More than that, he said. These remarks condone social manipulation and justify inequality in its most blatant form. Unfortunately despite continuous efforts by Bangladeshi womens rights groups and civil society, the legal system remains inaccessible for the majority of women. population. The legal system in our country has failed to reach the ordinary masses. Neither the government nor the NGOs or any legal system is physically or financially accessible to the majority of the people. They simply cannot afford it. So the primitive a distorted form Sharia law takes advantage of that in the name of salish, or arbitrary rulings. The so-called clerics and local village leaders take advantage of the situation in the name of religion. Violence against women is a crime that cannot be justified on the basis of fatwas. The self-appointed givers of fatwa have no authority for their proclamations. Also what these statements fail to clarify is a fundamental misconception about fatwa themselves. Despite sporadic responses from law enforcement agencies, and in some cases high-level interventions by the Prime Ministers Office providing medical treatment to the survivors, no systematic efforts have really been undertaken to address such cases. Such extra-judicial punishments such as whipping and lashing and caning as well as forced ostracism within the village constitute grave and egregious violations of the fundamental right to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment as guaranteed under Article 35(5) of the Constitution and the imposition and execution of such extra-judicial punishments by persons acting without any authority of law clearly constitutes a violation of the fundamental right of all persons to be treated in accordance with law, as guaranteed under Article 31 of the Constitution. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on May12, 2011 ruled that fatwa or religious edicts could only be pronounced by persons properly educated in religious matters, but no one could be forced to accept it, in the following terms: No person can pronounce a fatwa which violates or affects the rights or reputation or dignity of any person which is covered by the law of the land, It added: [A] fatwa on religious matters only may be given by the properly educated persons which may be accepted only voluntarily but any coercion or undue influence in any form is forbidden. The judgement further pointed out that no punishment including physical violence or mental torture in any form can be imposed or implicated on anybody in pursuance of [a] fatwa. The abovementioned verdict of the Apex Court of Bangladesh in the fatwa case and the High Court judgement against fatwa and related advocacy work against fatwa, are definitely one step forward in order to protect womens rights in Bangladesh and this would eventually lead to incremental achievements for legal empowerment of women in the country. The judgement in the fatwa case demonstrates the positive approach by the judiciary and substantiates the inalienable fundamental human rights irrespective of gender. However even now dozens of fatwas are issued under (the distorted version of the) Sharia law each year by village clergy in Bangladesh. There are reports of women dying after being caned publicly based on rumours and allegations. The government should take urgent measures to make sure that religious fatwas and traditional dispute resolution methods do not result in extrajudicial punishments. The authorities should initiate a massive awareness campaign against extrajudicial punishments in the name of fatwas. Among other measures the government should educate everyone in schools, colleges, and madrasas about the fact that punishments under the garb of fatwas are illegal and regularly publicize these messages through print and electronic media. Bangladeshis have always felt pride of our existing family system compared to the West, if the mal-treatments on women goes on and the ailments of the women go unaddressed or poorly addressed, sooner or later we will face tremendous challenges to maintain the pride, as the confidence on the family system is by now starting to deteriorate and multi-faceted social calamities are coming to the fore. The real menace is not in fostering women education or women empowerment, it lies in our age-old, futile, exploitative mind-sets towards women. In Bangladesh women have been the vehicle for reducing poverty but often the value of their contribution is of secondary consideration. Economic growth has not resulted in automatic parity for men and women in society. Empowerment transcends economic equality in its simplest sense. Getting girls into school does not mean that they are equal to boys in a particular cultural setting if job opportunities remain segregated by gender. Education undeniably has an inherent value, but it is also a stepping stone into the world of work, and for gender equality really to exist, that stone must lead to the same shore for men and women alike. Although women leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, have been governing Bangladesh since 1991, ordinary women have not obtained complete rights and security. The writer is Assistant Editor of The Independent and can be contacted at: [email protected]