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Time for a change

Ranjan Karmaker
The recent pro-active decision of the government, asking political parties to include at least 33% women in committees, is a very timely initiative. But that is not enough, and there should be a clear deadline for implementing it as early as possible. Such a commitment should be specifically stated in the party declarations as well as election manifesto.
ALTHOUGH women have led two major political parties and the positions of prime minister and leader of the opposition have been occupied by women since 1991, politics in Bangladesh is still highly male-dominated. Women are reluctant to enter politics because of unfriendly environment, lack of financial strength, burden of household and lack of equal opportunities and rights. Often, misinterpretations of conservative and religious values, and traditional mindset, support the status quo in favour of men.
Despite the Constitutional guarantees of equal rights for women in every sphere of life, various forms of -discrimination against women have put them at a disadvantage. For bringing a meaningful change in women's lives, ensuring their equal participation in local and national politics is an imperative.
Political parties in Bangladesh don't practice gender equality, which is reflected in the indifference of government and other political institutions to ensure women's equal participation in development. Though movements by women's and human rights organisations have drawn partial attention of the government, without sincere and committed effort by the political parties the envisaged change will continue to remain elusive.
People believe that politics is not for women because of the predominance of fierce competition and conflicts, but if women get equal opportunity in politics this prejudice will just fall apart. Political parties should look into this.A good party is one that helps to materialise women's potentialities in active politics and decision-making. Without that, the human rights of 50% of our population can't be achieved, and the society will continue to miss out on their contribution. Experience shows that women have attempted to enter politics from outside political institutions and faced hurdles. Now, time has come to change things. Given their commitment to democracy, justice, equality, political parties should take the lead in this.
The recent pro-active decision of the government, asking political parties to include at least 33% women in committees, is a very timely initiative. But that is not enough, and there should be a clear deadline for implementing it as early as possible. Such a commitment should be specifically stated in the party declarations as well as election manifesto.
Steps Towards Development (Steps) organised a seminar in which a number of recommendations were put forward to be considered by political leaders. Steps believes this initiative will be a milestone in moving toward a democratic and just society with good governance. The following recommendations were agreed upon through an interactive dialogue with leading politicians from the major parties:
• Political commitments to be included in party constitution and election manifesto:
o Including at least 33% women in all committees of political parties.
o Ensuring one-third seats for women in the parliament with direct election system and separate constituency for them. o Taking measures to nominate more women in the general seats.
o Ensuring that woman be speaker or deputy speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad.
o Ensuring specific roles and responsibilities for women representatives of local government.
o Including women in all standing committees of the parliament and also as heads of committees.
o Forming a Gender Commission in the parliament.
o Making a clear statement about the parties stand regarding the National Policy for Women's Advancement 2008 and also how they are going to implement that in how many days.
o Taking special initiative to remove any reservation on CEDAW articles 2 and 16.1.C.
• Legal commitments for making new laws and reforming the existing ones to establish women's rights and participation.
o Introducing uniform family code to ensure women's rights in property and declaring specific action plan regarding its implementation.
o Identifyingprovisions that are not friendly toward women in the Criminal Procedure Code, Civil Procedure Code and Evidence Act and taking steps to remove them.
o Introducing uniform marriage registration and divorce act to ensure equal rights for women.
o Fatwa (religious dictation in a distorted way) against women should be banned.
o Amending Citizenship Act. Like men, if any Bangladeshi woman marries a foreigner, then her husband and children should get citizenship of the country.
o Ensuring women's equal rights in guardianship through reforming the existing guardianship Act of 1890.
o Introducing Equal Opportunity Act.
• In Bangladesh, violence against women has become a social disease. To eradicate this, effective measures should be taken, enact and implement Domestic Violence Prevention Act, prepare a collective action plan against violence against women and allocate fund in the national budget, introduce strict laws to prevent harassment of women in public places, ensure rapid trial of violence against women cases, amend Women and Children Repression Prevention Act 2000 to ensure provision of camera trial and right to self-defense and ensure governmental initiatives for increasing social safety net for women as well as rejecting perpetrators' political shelter.
• Children have a right to quality education, which will not only help change traditional perception of the society toward women but also will create skilled human ! resource and future leaders.
• In Bangladesh, there are very few oppor-; tunities for getting primary and reproduc-
I live health education. However, each adolescent boy and girl ne^ds access to ' this education in order to ensure safe ! motherhood and childbirth,
• In Bangladesh, about 77% rural women are engaged in agricultural works besides doing almost all the domestic works. Therefore, considering the rights and dignity of women:
o Recognise women engaged in agriculture.
o Provide training and technology for developing women as skilled agricultural labour force.
o Provide bank loan on easy terms.
o Preserve women's indigenous knowledge of agriculture.
• It's necessary to take action to introduce, reform and implemen policies and laws that consider women not as providers of cheap labour, but as equal citizens, and also to ensure equal wage for work with special initiative for creating safe and women-friendly workplace for.
• Women are equal contributors to national development. So initiatives should be taken to ensure their equal partnership in property, employment, market and business. Small and medium entrepreneurs should be provided training, capital on easy terms, as well as marketing and legal support.
• Initiative should be taken to change the negative attitude towards physically and mentally challenged women, and to integrate them in mainstream development.
• Bangladeshi women immigrants make a huge contribution to the national economy. There is need to ensure their access to information, proper appointment, security and dignity at workplace.
• It is necessary to take steps to ensure security and employment of the women of indigenous and religious minorities, and to ensure respect for their cultural diversity.
• Women are bearers of indigenous knowledge and technology, which has been of great importance at the time of natural and social disasters. For a lack of state initiative, those are going to multinational companies, which modify them and sell to the local people at a much higher price.
• Media can create public opinion and awareness in favour of gender equality and women's participation and rights.
• Competent women should be appointed as ambassadors, representatives to the UN and other international bodies, heads of commissions, and in the high court and judiciary.
• For a women-friendly environment in all national and local government agencies, structural and policy changes should be undertaken with proper monitoring mechanism to specify the roles and responsibilitiesof different actors.
• A data bank should be developed for gender-disaggregated data, without which it is hard to collect evidences for research or monitoring.
It is hoped that the political parties as well as related government agencies will not fail to fulfill the expectations of half of the nation's population (women). Ranjan Karmakef is executive director of Steps Towards
Development (Steps).