Empowerment of Women - Pledges & Demands
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A case study of comparative 2001 Election Manifesto of Leading
Political Parties of Bangladesh on Women's empowerment and rights of
children are presented below:

Awami League:
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[T]he number of reserved seats for women in the Parliament would be
doubled (i.e. 60) and system of direct elections would be introduced.
New steps would be taken for achieving women's rights, dignity and
empowerment. Stringent measures would be taken to stop violence
against women and children.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party:
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[W]omen's seat in the Parliament will be increased and they will be
elected directly to the Parliament. Education of female children will
have free education up to 12 classes. Loans on easy terms will be
extended to needy women for greater women's participation in
development activities. Education, training and development of skill
of women will be ensured to enable them to earn livelihood. Greater
opportunity will be provided for women for employment and promotion
in government service. Priority will be accorded to employment of
women in the fields of teaching in primary schools, medical
treatment, family planning and social service in rural areas.

Laws on repression of women, social and family discrimination,
torture, acid throwing and anti-dowry will be severely implemented.
Steps will be taken to remove discrimination between men and women.
All measures will be taken to make children healthy, happy and
educated in order to make them worthy citizens of the future. Anti-
repression laws against children will be rigorously re-enforced.

Jatio Party:
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a. Functioning of the Family Courts would be further strengthened to
protect the rights of women.

b. Reserved women's seat will be raised to 64 from 30 after due
amendment to the constitution

c. Necessary steps would be taken to protect child mortality rate.

Jamat-e-Islami Bangladesh:
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[I]n order to restore the status and rights of women as enshrined in
Islam as well as halting of oppression on women the following steps
shall be taken: -

1. Women shall be provided with employment in accordance with their
talent, qualification and needs.

2. Oppression on women in and outside the family shall be curbed with
an iron hand. Befitting steps shall be taken to bring the dowry
system to a grinding halt.

3. Women's right to inheritance in property shall be safeguarded.

4. Separate seat reservations for women in trains, steamers and buses
shall be introduced together with separate bus services for them in
cities and towns.

5.Due protection to the security of women, their luggage, honor and
prestige shall be provided while they are on a journey. Besides,
severe action shall be taken against those behaving indecently with
women.

6. Poor and shelter less women including the helpless widows shall be
rehabilitated at the State expense.

7. In order to bestow due recognition and honor upon the women as
enshrined in Islamic tenets, prostitution shall be abolished and
necessary programs for rehabilitation of the affected women shall be
undertaken.

8. Family Courts shall be constituted for safeguarding the rights of
women.

9. A composite program shall be started to facilitate earning by
women living in their houses or in the hamlet itself.

10. Women shall be provided with full opportunity to earn their
living and participate in nation-building activities keeping
themselves within the bounds of `Shariah'
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Observations:

(1) Regarding BNP's election pledge to increase reserved seat for
women in the parliament to be elected through direct election, it
appears that BNP has shifted from their election pledge while they
did not include the system of direct election, in the proposed
amendment of the constitution introduced in the current session
of the parliament. Critics have suspected influence of members of
ruling alliance.

(2) Regarding efforts for education to girl child and anti-dowry
movement, the Jote Government has taken some steps. Such as Food for
Education for the girl child and recently the Prime Minister has
written a personal letter of appeal to all members of the local
Government authorities to act vigilantly to create a dowry free
society. The results of those efforts are yet to be visible.

(3) Loans on easy terms to provide micro-credits to women from public
financial institutions are yet to come. This area is being largely
afforded by the NGOs who are suffering resistance from other members
of the ruling alliance.

4) No skill development programmes for women has been taken so far.
In this area also NGOs have some programme slowly expanding
overcoming duress of male dominant social postures.

5) Paper promise of priority to be given to women for employment in
education, health, family planning and social service is meaningless
without education and skill development programmes are materialized.

6) Crime of acid throwing has been largely curbed because of
implementation of stringent law and intense public campaign by women
rights organizations.

(7) No law to curb discrimination in family and private life is
forthcoming.

(8) Regarding JIB's programmes it is quite interesting to note that
without committing to any comprehensive programme for education and
skill development, it has been envisaged that, women shall be
provided with employment in accordance with their talent,
qualification and needs. The inherent dichotomy is obvious. It is
pledged that women's right to inheritance shall be protected, rather
safeguards as per law in other respects shall be provided while law
concerning women's right to inheritance already suffers from
discrimination. While other major political parties at least made
paper promise to eradicate discrimination, JIB programme envisages
segregation in public places (See: JIB-4) including segregation in
income generating occupational activities in household areas limited
to hamlets (See: JIB-9).

Conclusion:

(1) Adult franchise in electing people's representatives through
votes has been recognized in our society. This right regarding
political decision-making is never meaningful or real without
appropriate rights in the sphere of economy. If appropriate rights
and opportunities are absent regarding resource, employment,
education, health, shelter etc., an imbalance in the society is
created which puts some curb on the exercise of political rights of
the people. If minimum education for all which makes a person
conscious about society and economy, and if the weaker forces which
comprises vast majority in the population are not recognized as the
important agents in the development programmes by making them able
partners in all productive enterprises, organizations, decision and
policy making spheres, then the very idea of improving quality of the
social life of gets frustrated.

(2) Bangladesh society, which is controlled and dominated by
patriarchal values, recognizing the legitimacy of male domination
over social resources, means of production, land and labour etc.,
turns gender relation into a scenario of domination and sub-
ordination, authority and dependence. Such relation determined on the
basis of unfounded, false, artificial values, make women suffer from
deprivation, oppression, and exploitation. The society which carries
the burden of the deprived, oppressed and exploited mass of in-
ordinate proportion, fails to bring about an effective combination of
land, water, natural and human resources to establish necessary pre-
condition for socio-economic development. That is why, in spite of
having huge natural resources, countries in Middle-east, Africa, and
some other have not been able to ensure any commendable development,
on the other hand, having the least per capita land and natural
resources, countries like Holland, Japan, China and South Korea
undertaking the strategy of combining the available resources and
effectively engaging the over all population, could ensure
development.

(3) The socio-economic development of Bangladesh largely depends on
development of human resources. Women comprises half of the human
resources of Bangladesh, hence, the objective of empowering women in
society got its valid ground. This objective needs to create
consciousness about women's problems related to education, health,
skill development, employment, legal and environmental issues, so
that women can improve their position to secure the respect and
recognition of the individual personhood and be able to make positive
contribution through active participation in the social
transformation and decision-making activity. Since, politics and
state policies are closely inter-related, women's participation in
politics is also crucial. The marginal position of women's
participation in politics is an over-all indicator of the over-all
sub-ordinated position of women in the World.

(4) In context of formulating the development strategy of Bangladesh,
sub-ordination of women accepted in all spheres of society,
environment of lack of bold and positive attitude to women's problems
have been identified as impediments towards potential opportunities
for women to get involved in socio-economic activities including
politics, initiating possibilities for them to ameliorate their
position to influence the decision making position in formulating
executive policies. Therefore, side by side with other policy options
considered to formulate the paradigms of strategy for development,
the empowerment of women in particular has been identified as one of
the several course of programme of action.

(5) It should be mentioned in this regard that, the constitution of
Bangladesh in Article 10, embodies the participation of women in all
spheres of national life, and in Article 28(2) recognizes equal right
for men and women in all spheres of public and state life. The
constitution thus implied the possibility of progress through
affirmative action by the state in favour of integrating women in the
mainstream of development rather than creating a separate channel for
them. But, the process of mainstreaming women requires a strong
commitment of gender equity supported by careful operational plans to
ensure women's participation in all sectors, and reforms of the laws
which infringe women's rights to provide the necessary framework of
formal equality within which this process can occur. The emphasis on
law as a tool for empowerment of women is made in full realization
that law reform cannot in itself solve problems of inequality and
discrimination, but still the recommendation and demand in this
respect for legislative and law reforms are made in recognition that
the law as an institution can critically intervene in sectors such as
education, employment, health, and most importantly, personal life.
Legislation should be passed to at least ensure formal equality in
all these spheres, underpinned by procedural reforms particularly
aimed at the administrative and enforcement levels to ensure access
to justice and the translation of formal to real equality.

(6) The legislative guarantees provided in the constitution of
Bangladesh providing equal rights and nondiscrimination of women are
further supported by the ratification of the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against
Women (UNCEDAW). However, a close analysis of the text of the
Constitution of Bangladesh and many democratic countries enacting
adult franchise reveals a significant omission: the guarantee of
equal rights between men and women does not extend to the private
sphere, i.e. to matters concerning the family or inheritance to
property. The failure to underwrite paper promises of equality is
further revealed by the ratification UNCEDAW made by the Government
of Bangladesh having been made subject to reservations regarding the
Convention provisions dealing with equal rights, particularly within
the family, hence such ratification made with reservations would make
those Governments liable, within a specified period, to amend its
laws in conformity with the Convention. This sharp disjuncture made
between paper promises of equality and the reality of legally
justified discrimination on the ground of sex is contradiction to the
commitment of democracy.

(7) Women's demand for equality before the law is a demand to be
recognized as an individual able to determine her own individual
physical existences within society, within the community and within
the Family, on the basis of equity and nondiscrimination. Individual
rights cannot be subsumed within the rights of any group and
community. Stasis religious schools of law which could not see the
lights of reforms when reforms were sought to happen within them
through the methodology established by themselves within those
schools of jurisprudences but perpetuating now the discrimination
between sexes continued to be justified on the grounds that they are
an essential component of a community's self identity, and any
encroachment on these laws is an attack on the community or religion,
cannot be sustained within a society traditionally committed to
reasonable and rational exercise of religious values and politically
committed through decades of the people's movements and sacrifice of
countless martyrs, to undertake democratic process and protection of
right of individual's own religious faith. It is, therefore, intended
that, women's rights receive prior protection over
undefined "community' rights perpetuating imbalance of power between
sexes in the private and family life.

(8) In the backdrop of all those social, ideological, political,
economical and legal issues, the relevance of undertaking
intervention strategy through legislative action to provide reserved
seat in the political representative offices on the basis of
universal franchise and direct election got its ground in Bangladesh.
The socio-economic and political realities dictates the need for
special representation of women, but it is necessary to ground such
representation on direct contact with grassroots, not on elite
contact with party and government. It is therefore necessary to bring
about a constitutional amendment of article 65(3) of Bangladesh
specifying the number of reserved seats for women and modality of
direct election. The area of constituencies under previous provision
of 30 nominated reserved seats are too large to serve as direct
territorial constituencies, therefore, the number of reserved seats
need to be essentially increased from 30 to 64 to correspond with the
existing administrative districts.

(9) Keeping it in mind that, empowerment of women through legislative
action in Bangladesh or a country facing similar situations is not a
goal in itself, but is an instrument to set in motion necessary
reforms and discourses for a balanced and harmonious process of
participation of women in the affairs of the state indeed to bring
about the much needed socio-economic and democratic development of
the society, and once the balance in the society is achieved
liberating women from the abuses of discriminated gender relation and
integrating women in to their rightful position within the mainstream
of all the activities of the family, society and the state, the
necessity of maintaining reserved seats in the political
representative offices and the public service sectors should undergo
natural process of elimination.

(10) The women of Bangladesh demands from BNP, the leading party of
the ruling Jote Government to uphold their election pledge through
fulfilling their commitments made therein without being subsumed by
the other alliance members whose ideology for separation and
subjugation of women in public and private life discriminates women
on the ground of sexual identity is a major infringement on the right
and freedom of women's self-identity as protected by the constitution
of Bangladesh.


Afroza Begum
Dhaka, April 04, 2004