Gender in Bangladesh
Since the 80ties the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is implementing a gender policy, firstly known by Women and Development, later several times renamed and ending up in Gender-equality Women’s Empowerment. During these 40 years Bangladesh has been an important partner country for the Netherlands Development Cooperation and women’s empowerment has always been an important element of the development programme. Actually The Netherlands is one of the first countries to recognise Bangladesh, as a nation state after its independence in 1971, and set up diplomatic ties.
Since the 80s Women’s empowerment has been a stand-alone element of the Development Cooperation programme of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Dhaka with a specific budget. During those years Mr Jan Pronk was Minister for Development Cooperation a special sector-expert for Women was appointed at the embassy. She signifies the commitment to women's empowerment and carried out her programme with a focus on women.
Before entering in a more detailed paragraph about the activities in the field of women’s empowerment a general overview will be presented on the role and responsibilities of women in Bangladeshi society. The central question is What is the role Bangladeshi women play in the society, and, has there been any improvement in their situation in general?
Also check out our chronological timeline for more information on these topics.
The Role of women in the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh:
The 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh was a result of long rooted discriminations that the Bangladeshi people experienced during the period of 1947 to 1971.
It started right after the partition in 1947, in which the Indian sub-continent was divided into India and Pakistan on the basis of religious denomination. Bangladesh felt under Pakistan as majority of Bangladeshi people belong to the Islam.
It is important to mention that participation of women in the war was spontaneous, diverse and vibrant. Women participated from all walk of society irrespective of age literacy, and socio- economic background. In this role, a section of university and college going women was seen politically conscious and active even before the war. These courageous women kept raising their voice on the streets, writing policy-protest briefings, slogans, demanded points along with men against the discriminatory rules imposed by the West Pakistani rulers. All these built a solid ground for mobilizing common people that culminated in the announcement of independence by the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 26, 1971.
After the advent of war, women knowingly joined the war from patriotic values, aimed for freeing the motherland from Pakistani rulers. They fought as guerilla fighters in the direct war front side- by-side with fellow male freedom fighters after receiving trainings. Women participation was particularly visible in the cultural troupe rendering patriotic songs for inspiring freedom fighters and to lift the spirit of war affected people. Women presence was found as doctors and nurses in the battle ground serving wounded freedom fighters and mass people.
Besides, women participated in other important roles as volunteers, informants and cooks remaining behind the scenes.
And that is thanks to all the people of Bangladesh and its females, who fought for its independence and won the war against the mighty Pakistani army. Except for a handful of collaborators, the majority of the population fought in that war, and women’s role in that struggle was incredible. Men fought with their weapons in direct action. Many women fought the war with their brains, giving the front line fighters food and safety, hiding their guns and weapons, spying on the Pakistani army, and keeping the economy going. A heartfelt tribute should be paid to each and every of those women of 1971 war who were taken as captives, raped and murdered brutally by the Pakistani army and its Bangladeshi collaborators.
The devastating and cruel nine-months war in 1971 ended in December and counted about 200.000 deaths and many raped women. These women and their families didn’t want them to deliver bastard babies. Therefore the government developed a law that permitted Menstrual Regulation, a way of abortion.
Since the liberation the country has never had a rest. It went through many military coups and killings, natural disasters, famines, foreign invasion, and endless political turmoil. And it never stood still. It has been kept going by the power of its people. The country is basically run by remittances from abroad, earned by emigrants working in many countries in the world, especially in the Middle East. And many of these workers are women. Bangladeshi villagers are even creating greenery in the Middle Eastern sands and deserts, growing Bangladeshi vegetables and trees of all kinds. Women folks send the seeds from Bangladesh and their male partners are advised by phone on how to make a desert into a green land. Middle Easterners are now eating Bangladeshi bananas, mangoes and vegetables, which are growing in their hot dry sands.
Political participation:
After the murder of the Father of the Nation Sheikh Mudjibur Rahman and his family, his daughter Sheikh Hasina (who was in Germany during that time) became the political party Awami League leader. She fought against the opposition, her rival Khaleda Zia from the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) for the power over the country. These two tough women leaders encouraged many women in Bangladesh to become political active at different levels. About three hundred women are first line politicians. Beside the Prime Minister and the opposition leaders of the two main parties there are the Speaker of the parliament and many Members of Parliament. Also women at regional level have turned into politics. Village women have always been more involved in field working politics than lower or upper middle class women. The availability of TV and mobile telephones has shown them the everyday pictures of Parliament, where they can be inspired by elite upper class ladies in expensive shiny saris, loaded with gold and expensive jewellery, having heated discussions in the mighty parliament, making and passing laws, and running the country for them. Some female parliamentarians are more famous than movie stars.
The reality is however not that simple as it sometimes looks like. The BAL (Bangladesh Awami League) of the ruling party has created committees at the grass-root levels in rural areas. Elections are created by them and only BAL candidates could win an election. Huge amounts of money are sloshing around in these village committees nowadays and many want to be a member of BAL. Also village women are eager joining that game. Being members of the female committees of BAL, they enjoy the immense power and corrupt money. Many villages nowadays have a lot of shiny houses, belonging to these new political class.
Economic participation:
Bangladeshi women have always worked hard side by side with their male fellows for instance in the rice fields. They are present in every corner of the country. They are doctors, teachers, bankers, business personalities, judges and court clerks, and can even be running the village tea stalls. If there hadn’t been these women, present-day Bangladesh wouldn’t be as it is today.
Even illiterate village girls are finding jobs in the cities (ready-made garment industries), are migrating to many countries and are flying all alone, working and sending money home to their families. Married women with children are moving to Middle Eastern countries, pretending to be unmarried females because the oil rich countries demand only unmarried Bangladeshi females as their domestic help. A few years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Instead, the usual spectacle was of females crying at Dhaka airport, sobbing because their husbands were going abroad.
But this does not mean that migration to the Middle East is ‘a rose garden’. Often the young females are victimised or suffer sexual assault, are sometimes raped, and then sent back to Bangladesh, sometimes with a bastard child in their arms or completely mad. The number of these sexually violated victims is so high that, BRAC had to open a shelter and safe house for these female rape victims returning from the Middle East. They are never taken back by their own families because of shame, which means that a raped woman is eternally unholy.
During the eighties the textile industries started to grow and attracted many young women workers from the rural areas to migrate to the major cities to take up garment jobs. They were considered as persons with special skills for fine and precise work at the sewing machines. This is often referred to as feminisation of migration. These women became the motor of the economic growth of the country. Although migration provided women with more economic opportunities, it also brought new challenges. Due to migration women lost their traditional social protection network and became part of a new social order in the overcrowded slums of the cities, living in miserable circumstances regarding health and housing.
Other women are trying to become entrepreneurs. They are found everywhere and in every class. Doing business online is very attractive for lower or middle class women. Rich females are not bothered by anything, they shop online. Village women have opened small shops in villages next to their homes, where they can keep an eye on their children as well. They sell all kind of merchandise, including fish and vegetables. The small tea stalls that they run are very popular and are being kept open until very late hours. Funnily, all those tea drinking customers are males and the village heads or society in general does not see any harm in it.
The legal system:
According to the Bangladeshi legal system, an unmarried Hindu woman inherits one third of her father’s entire property. But after marriage, she only inherits a small part of her husband’s property, which is still a struggle to achieve. Therefore the dowry was invented as part of Hindu weddings. A girl gets enough gifts from her father’s house to enable her to live comfortably for the rest of her life. In order to keep the dowry system under control, the Bangladeshi government has tried to pass a new bill, in which it is proposed that Hindu women should also get a share of their father’s property. But the bill did not pass, because Hindu political figures of both sexes opposed it. In February 2022, they even demonstrated in Dhaka against this bill.
On the other hand, Muslim women, whether married or not, inherit property of both their father and husband, which gives them a strong position in the society. Nevertheless, most of the time, they don’t demand their inheritance on the father’s side, or sell it, out of pride of the husband’s family.
Instead, married Muslim females try to keep the door of their father’s house open. Visiting the family is more important for them than in other societies. The house of the father remains a permanent shelter for Muslim women.
There is always a written marriage contract drawn up for Islamic weddings, prior to the marriage, where the groom promises a good life for his wife, a monthly allowance, occasional gifts, gold jewelry and a large amount of cash money (which is often actually paid only if there is divorce between the couple). The amount of the marriage contract varies from class to class, from rich to poor. But it is there and it gives the Islamic bride more financial security. Another important aspect of the Islamic marriage contract is that the bride is given the right of divorce, at any time and any place, as long as the divorce petition shows a reasonable reason. This is absent in a Hindu wedding and makes Hindu females more vulnerable in society. There is no end or solution to make their sufferings stop.
Modern times:
Half of the population of 163 million are women. Whatever the pressure is from the patriarchal society, it is not possible to keep such a vast number of women in a cage, namely at home. Women as well as men have changed their lifestyle. Many national and international NGO’s have been standing next to Bangladeshi women to help them achieve gender equality in education, the labor market and in their homes and families. But if the women had not stood up to fight for their own rights, they would still be left far behind. It is their courage that deserves respect.
The shelter of the father’s house became less attractive to modern women these days. The sense of individual rights is growing among them. Strangely enough, this is also because of the mobile phone! One little device has given the freedom of communication and access to knowledge and information, especially to the village women in Bangladeshi.
So, women have become more educated, informed and mobile. They are running their businesses among men with extreme cunningness. The females who fought in the battlefield during the war of independence with a bare head are now following a fashion: wearing a hijab. Their bodies are fully covered by a sort of half Arabic and half Bollywood dress. Females who never knew about lipstick are now covered in film-style make-up. They all try to be fairer skinned than they are by nature. A dark red lipstick is allowed under the burkha and hijab. There are even dance parties being organised in the villages, where female local dancers are dancing in their burkha and hijab, looking like a half Arab and half something else.
Violence against women:
It seems nothing is wrong as long as women are fully covered one way or another. But are they safe under the hijab? The answer is a flat NO! Rape and gang rapes are taking place like an epidemic throughout the country. Even very young female children are not safe from their male relatives or outsiders. Rich and powerful men can come and go to any house to pick up women of their choice. Videos are being taken by the rapist to sell on the online sex markets and the demand for these videos is disgustingly large. Many girls are afraid to go to their schools or colleges, for fear of being raped by those who are close to them.
The Madrassas or Islamic schools demand a strict dress code for both sexes. The female students are fully covered, from top to toe. Most of these students are either totally orphaned or have only one parent. These poor students are sent there to enjoy a cheap education. But even in an environment as closed as the madrassa, both male and female young children are being brutally raped and even sometimes murdered afterwards. These are everyday events, which are only sometimes publicised in the media, such as printed newspapers, if this is permitted by the authorities. If a woman nowadays goes out for any reason, her hope is that, even if she is raped, she will at least not be murdered. A mother’s prayer is, ‘Oh my God, take care of my little child; if he/ she is going to be raped, at least let him/her not be murdered; have mercy on the soul of the rapist.”
When a University student gets raped, her fellow students go out on the street to protest but after an hour or so of demonstration, they go home again, and nothing will change.
Since women's work had been considered as "unskilled", women in the RMG are often underpaid, and remain concentrated at the bottom part of the job structure, where managerial work is done by mostly men. Therefore, women work extra hours to maintain their families in the village at the cost of their health and wellbeing. Therefore they often experience sexual harassment when they return from their work to home at late night.
Female human rights activists are an elite class, who appear in a protest on the 8th of March (international women’s day) regarding Violence against Women, but lack structural actions. Exceptions are Sara Hossain, Honorary Director of BLAST, and Sultana Kamal, board chair of the We Can campaign, both supported by EKN. They are lifelong female activists who are involved with working class victims. Also the press and media, restricted by endless laws, is limited in publications about VAW and the lack of proper mental, legal and physical support of victims. Some are even well paid by the authorities for not publishing messages, which may be harmful to authorities.
Netherlands International Cooperation:
The Netherlands supported many International Cooperation projects in Bangladesh with a focus on women. Given the tremendous amount of work that has been done over the last 50 years, it is important to make a disclaimer that this is just a glimpse of the huge effort that has been done with special attention given to gender equality.
Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 163 million people, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Since its independence, the Bangladesh government with help of international organisations has achieved significant success in reducing the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) from 6.3 to 2.3 between 1975 and 2019. Despite the fertility reduction, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) remains high (173 deaths per 100,000 live births, WHO 2018). This rate is particularly higher among young adolescents (63.4 deaths per 100,000 population) caused by the many child marriages that still take place (52% of the women are married under 18). Under the Health sector EKN, together with UK, Canada and Australia, supported a successful project that was carried out by DGFP and Brac to reduce maternal mortality. Unfortunately the Bangladesh government was too much depending on donor support to be able to roll out the developed system over the country. First Australia, later EKN stopped their support because of changed national development policies.
Women's rights organisations, supported by the Netherlands, such as Naripokkho and Bangladesh Mahila Parishad amongst others, carried on huge work on awareness programs for women at the grassroots level. Despite some criticisms, the Brac parallel health care and education structure in the country is one of the success stories of Bangladeshi women as well as the microcredit programs of Grameen Bank.
Given the Bangladeshi government’s commitment to ensure gender equality and women's empowerment, a peculiar combination of poverty and existing patriarchal gender norms seems to be a greater hurdle. In the rural areas, girls from poor households are often married off at an early age; to avoid a higher dowry price at an older age. The Netherlands supported the Image project to develop the potential of these young married girls. Hence, a vicious circle continues to reproduce itself still. Being dropped out from school, early marriage and early childbearing, not only make young girls economically dependent on their family members, young girls are often denied of proper food and nutrition, and access to the basic healthcare, especially during pregnancy and child delivery. Contributing to a continued high maternal mortality.
GO and NGO workers are member of their community, therefore internalise existing norms and values, making it particularly difficult to work within the existing patriarchal system that marginalises women. NGOs and women's rights organisations experience resistance and violence from conservative forces.
As a continuum of women’s empowerment projects, the EKN started a project named institutionalising the department of women's studies in Bangladesh (2002- 2007) with a generous grand. With this support, the first women's studies department was established in Bangladesh at Dhaka University, the biggest public University in Bangladesh, under the leadership of Emeritus Professor Dr. Najma Chowdhury as the Project Responsible in Bangladesh. Later the name changed to "Department of Women and Gender Studies (DWGS)".
Dr. Saskia Wieringa, former Project Responsible, and Dr. Amrita Chachi at the Institution of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, played a key role in running the entire project in close collaboration with EKN. The Bachelor and Masters program at this department not only produced a generation of local gender experts in Bangladesh, the programme simultaneously trained Government employees, particularly the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and numerous NGOs working on gender issues in Bangladesh.
The project continued beyond its time limit and financially supported several MA, PhD and post- doctoral degrees in Bangladesh, Thailand and in the Netherlands and delivered several national and international publications.
The graduates of DWGS are now working at the GO, NGO and iNGOs in Bangladesh, such as UNICEF, UNDP, WHO, Plan International, just to name a few.
From 2011 on EKN supported many projects to improve (adolescent) women's sexual and reproductive health and rights, which still remains a taboo subject in Bangladesh. An example is the project Unite for Body Rights, what aimed to introduce comprehensive sexuality education in school curricula. New and successful was the intensive cooperation of a number of local NGO’s with the Dutch Rutgers Foundation. This Foundation introduced the training of local Master trainers who in their turn trained school teachers the implementation of the method Me and my world. Students, teachers, school management committees and parents were quite enthusiastic about this all.
Another outstanding collaboration project is on "Improving ready-made garments sector factory workers’ health in Bangladesh through integration of SRHR information and services" under the Orange knowledge Institutional collaboration projects through Nuffic (2018- ongoing). This project was named STITCH (SRHR Tailor made Information and Training to Contribute to the occupational Health and safety conditions of ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh). The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, being the principal applicant of the project, cooperates closely with the following consortium partners: the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Directorate General of Health and Family Planning (DGFP), Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), RedOrange media and communications, Ayat Skill Development Centre (ASDC), a vocational training institution and Indigenous People’s Development Services (IPDS), an NGO representative of minority communities in Bangladesh. EKN was involved in the selection process of the application as well as in giving useful advice during the implementation process.
The STITCH project trains healthcare workers to provide respectable SRH services for garment workers in collaboration with factory owners in their factory premises, at the health clinics and/ or government at satellite clinics.
Long-term knowledge production through co- creation had been at the heart of this collaboration project. In collaboration with the SRHR expertise of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije universiteit Amsterdam, DGFP co-created SRHR training models for government employees working at the grassroots level. IPDS, played a very strategic role in incorporating indigenous (Adivasi) men and women's needs into the SRHR training module. This SRHR training module will have far greater impact on ensuring SRHR beyond the garment sector.
Trainers at the vocational training institute, ASDC, were trained to provide SRHR information to young boys and girls at their training centre in a gender-sensitive way. Young boys and girls have received SRH information and knowledge at the training centre along with their sewing skills. Since the trainees at the vocational centers are mostly school drop-outs and missed any formal SRH education, (although limited in scope), this will empower young trainees to make responsible reproductive health choices and decisions, and protect them from being a victim of sexual harassment at work or at public spaces.
Besides the stand alone development projects with focus on women's empowerment, gender mainstreaming takes place in various sectors ranging from water management, sanitation, food security, human rights and migration projects.
An example is the Blue Gold project, supported by EKN and implemented by Mott MacDonald to improve agriculture and reducing poverty. Mott MacDonald partnered with the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and gave tremendous emphasis on women's empowerment to ensure women's active participation.
The lessons learned and knowledge and expertise gained in the field of Women’s empowerment through the Blue Gold project has been integrated in the Delta plan of Bangladesh 2100, which has been approved by the prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina in 2018.
Bangladesh has entered into a new phase in terms of social and economic development, turning into a middle income country. Despite the Covid pandemic, which affected the economy drastically, Bangladesh continues to show impressive economic growth. The development collaboration between the Netherlands and Bangladesh will end, however diplomatic and economic ties may become even stronger under the new circumstances.
Sources and Read more:
Check out our chronological timeline on the cooperation between the Netherlands and Bangladesh.
Read more about the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse and what it meant for Dutch foreign policy regarding decent work for women here in our timeline on Women's Economic Empowerment.
Encyclopedia Britannica - Bangladesh, History
Contribution of Bangladeshi Women to the Liberation War, 2019.
