Bangla women have to fight for their rights

Naripokkho, a group of women’s rights activists, says 629 women were killed across the country in the last ten months for similar reasons, while 268 women committed suicide during the same period to escape torture by their in-laws.

Dowry, is a five-decade old custom in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. No marriage is conducted without giving dowry.

Women whose parents cannot satisfy the materials needs of their husbands and in-laws risk divorce or worse, murder like Mammi, even after many years of marriage.

Of the estimated 1.9 million marriages that take place annually, some 0.02 per cent end in dissolution, and the main reason is dowry.

Quoting home ministry sources, the widely read Dhaka-based Bangla-language daily, Sangbad said at least 747 cases were registered in 1997 in police stations for dowry-related harassment of women.

Majority of the cases go unreported, since women believe they have no rights, and rarely stand up to bullying in their homes.

It is not unusual for women to have been divorced for failing to serve the meal quickly enough, for entertaining their relatives in their husband’s home, for demanding new clothes on festivals and other trivial reasons.

Bangladesh has gender sensitive laws in place, and various courts to protect the rights of women, and also every citizen’s which is guaranteed under article 31 of its constitution.

“Every citizen of the country has the inalienable right to the protection of law and to be treated in accordance with law,” the constitution states.

In each of the country’s 64 district headquarters, there are special cells to deal with repression of women in many rural thanas or sub-districts.

An act of parliament in 1995, `Oppression of Women and Children (Special) Act, provides for capital punishment. The minimum sentence under this law is imprisonment for five years.

But widespread ignorance of legal rights, the endemic poverty and the lengthy process of law often deprive the oppressed women of the benefits of laws.

Cases also invariably pile up for years with the courts burdened with a backlog of pending cases.

Muktakanta, a bangla-daily said a total of 13,294 cases relating to repression on women were filed before the court in 1997. To this 9,040 was added the following year, and in the first six months of the current year, 6,003 cases were filed.

The legal process is very cumbersome and slow-moving. It could take years for a case to come up for hearing, and then many more years before a final judgement is delivered by the court.

Not only does litigation cost money and time, its outcome is also very unpredictable. Police inquiry reports and charge-sheets could be tampered with.

Only the wealthy or well-connected women could stand up to the organised strength of law breakers. Others are helpless in the absence of women police and adequate numbers of judges to preside over their cases.

At a seminar last week in Dhaka, Justice Latifur Rahman, a judge of the supreme court, declared that delayed justice amounted to infringement of human rights. In his opinion, poverty and illiteracy were the main reasons for the violation of constitutionally and legally guaranteed rights.

Advocate Abu Ahmed who is at Dhaka’s judges court, pleaded for strict enforcement of the anti-dowry law and exemplary punishment for those found guilty.

“At the same time it should be ensured that the law enforcing agencies perform their duties sincerely without being influenced by any quarter,” he stressed.

Other social leaders put equal stress on building up public opinion against dowry. They also called for empowering women through education and poverty alleviation.

Opening a women’s book fair in the capital on December three, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed urged women to prepare themselves to realise their rights. “You will have to establish your rights. You will have to wrest them as none hands out rights,” she said.