Empowerment of female representatives is imperative, says roundtable

Women rights leaders stressed called for more empowerment of female MPs in the reserved seat and female representatives of local government bodies in order to strengthen women’s position in the political arena and in society as a whole.

Stakeholders at a roundtable on Sunday lamented that the women of the country fell prey to sexual violence and were defamed during the election. The said that mindsets would have to change if the situation was to improve.

Prothom Alo, in association with Institute of Informatics and Development (IID), organised the roundtable on electoral violence against women at CA Bhaban in Karwan Bazar.

Several discussants said that tragic death of Feni madrasa student Nusrat indicated that the victims of sexual violence cannot even protest, fearing further reprisal and defamation.

Referring to the culture of impunity relating to violence against women, rights group Ain O Shalish Kendra executive director Sheepa Hafiza said, “It’s a matter of regret that we have never seen justice delivered in many of the hyped cases.”

“Lawmakers of reserved seat for women are fundamentally weak as they don’t have any constituency. As a result they can’t speak strongly in parliament,” she added.

Sheepa also pointed out that male lawmakers should be more gender sensitive.

Former lawmaker Mahjabeen Khaled said women's participation in politics would not increase if political parties did not want so.

She also called for creating a women parliamentary caucus so that women’s voices are heard in parliament.

Bangladesh Mahila Parishad’s general secretary Maleka Banu blamed the absence of the rule of law for violence against women.

“As many as 401 incidents of sexual abuse were reported in the media in April alone, among whom 156 were raped. We are going through dangerous times now,” she said.

Women support and investigation division’s deputy police commissioner Farida Yasmin said they received reports in the recent elections that campaigners for women candidates faced psychological even sexual and physical torture.

“They even feared to take legal measures fearing further consequences,” she added.

Farida said that law enforcers always give protection to victims but preventive measures are more important than protection.

Asia Foundation’s senior programme officer Shabbir Shawkat said that many women cannot even understand that they are being abused as mental abuse is considered normal in our society.

Institute of Informatics and Development’s (IID) Orin Haque and Falguni Reza presented a study which highlighted vulnerability of women during election period.
Conducted in 8 constituencies from October 2018 to March 2019, the IID study pointed out that female candidates and voters face different obstacles during the election, such as family pressure, intimidation, defamation of character, hate speech and restriction on campaign activities.

Human rights lawyer Salma Ali, Nari Uddyog Kendro’s Masuda Khatun Shefali, Director of CARE Bangladesh’s Women and Girls Empowerment programme Humaira Aziz, teacher of Dhaka University’s peace and conflict studies’ department Saber Ahmed Chowdhury, among others spoke at the roundtable.

Prothom Alo associate editor Abdul Quayyum moderated the discussion.