Women in Bangladesh

The status of women in Bangladesh has been subject to many important changes over the past few centuries. Bangladeshi women have made significant progress since the country’s independence in 1971, where women in the region experienced increased political empowerment for women, better job prospects, increased opportunities of education and the adoption of new laws to protect their rights through Bangladesh's policies in the last four decades. Still, women in Bangladesh continue to struggle to achieve equal status to men due to societal norms that enforce restrictive gender roles as well as poor implementation of laws that were set to protect women.

Quotes

• Dozens of fatwas are issued each year in Bangladesh by the rural clergy at village gatherings after receipt of complaints, usually against women who assert themselves in village family life. They impose flogging and stoning and other humiliating punishments such as shaving of heads, insults and beatings. They are also often involved in their execution.... In October 2000, the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious hitolerance reported that 26 fatwas issued in the previous year were an attempt 'to stifle any efforts to emancipate women'."
  • Amnesty International Press Release, 5 January 2001, AI Index ASA 13/001/2001 - News Service Nr. 3, "Bangladesh: Landmark High Court ruling against fatwas". quoted in Y Rosser, Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh. 2004 page 215

• ‘The other South Asian nation, Bangladesh, is not far behind on issues of crime against women. On 1 October 2020, Ain 0 Salish Kendra, Bangladesh-based human rights organization, revealed that from January to September of that year, more than 1,000 women were raped, 43 of whom died. More than 200 women managed to evade their attempted rapist. The Bangladeshi human rights ‘organization, Odhiur, reported that between 2016 and 2019, there were 963 reported rape incidents, which is considered inaccurate and underreported. In six administrative districts of Bangladesh, from 2011 to 2018, the courts only convicted five out of 4,372 rape cases, as reported by Naripoltho, a local women's rights group."
  • Nation and Its Modes of Oppressions in South Asia Sajal Nag · 2022

• In Bangladesh, gang rape has become a major tool of political terror, forcing minorities to flee and has proven more effective than murder.
  • Lundstrom, "With Intent to Destroy? Rape as Genocide under International Criminal Law: The case of Bangladesh, 2007" in Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. p. 226

• Violence against women is a common weapon used to intimidate and harass minority communities across the world. It has similarly been used in Banglades has a means to attack Hindus.For instance, in the period immediately following the 2001 elections, approximately 1,000 Hindu women and girls were raped. ... The systematic kidnapping,rape,and murder of minority women,particularly young Hindu girls,continued in 2010.Rapes and kidnappingsof Hindusare often accompaniedby forced conversion to Islam...Rapes and kidnappings of Hindus are often accompanied by forced conversion to Islam. (225)
  • Hindu American Foundation, Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A survey of Human Rights 2010, p. 13-14. quoted in Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. p. 225

• For instance, in the period immediately following the 2001 elections,approximately 1,000 Hindu women and girls were raped. ... The systematic kidnapping,rape,and murder of minority women,particularly young Hindu girls,continued in 2011.
  • Hindu American Foundation, Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A survey of Human Rights 2010, p. 11. quoted in Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. p. 225-6

• One incident that is becoming more and more common was related to me in almost every colony I visited between 2008 and 2010: the random abduction of young Hindu women and girls. With a numbing consistency, their testimonies would tell of a young female walking by the side of the road. In some cases, she was going to draw water; in others she was on her way to school; and in some, she was just walking o her way to see a relative or friend. out of the blue, a gang of Muslims would drive up and snatch the woman and then take her to a vacant building or field and rape her repeatedly. (85)
  • Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. 85

• Every Hindu with whom we spoke said the women of the house could not go to market or anywhere else without harassment and threats of sexual assault. Their children could not attend school because of the threats.
  • Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. (158)

• One story men and women both told me repeatedly involved abductions of young Hindu women in Bangladesh. They might be walking by the road or on their way to school when groups of Muslims would force them into vehicles, carry them off, and then rape them. ....Five Muslim men broke into Koli's family [Koli Goswami] at 12:45 am on June 13, 2009. ... they carried her away. Her family has not seen her since. To many Westerners, stories like this strain credulity. It simply is not within the realm of their experience.
  • Benkin, Richard L. (2014). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. (224-230)

• The barbaric assault on Hindu women is the greatest cause of migration of Hindus from Pakistan.
  • Roy A. C. (198AD). Genocide of hindus & buddhists in east pakistan (bangladesh). : quoted in Kamra A. J. (2000). The prolonged partition and its pogroms : testimonies on violence against Hindus in East Bengal 1946-64. pp. 62

• I interviewed numerous Hindus in Dhaka and Mymensingh who told me stories of how their lives were continually in danger. Controversial as it may be, they also told me that their daughters are often kidnapped, "forcibly converted and married to Muslim boys". They explained that, once converted, even by force", there is nothing they can do, because if the girls want to come home" and return to their ancestral religion they are then "accused of apostasy and run the risk of being murdered by the decree of a fatwa. Because of these pressures, the Hindu population of Bangladesh continues to shrink annually.
  • Y Rosser, Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh. 2004 page **134