e_Paper, Sunday, July 23, 2017

A failure to protect
Opinion 15
Economic growth means nothing if we can’t keep girls and women safe from abuse
DT
SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017
Young girls should never have to face abuse
Bangladesh has been walking a tightrope for too long, as the state is,
now more than ever, dangerously close to giving legitimate space to
Islamist fanatics
• Jahanara Nuri
Bangladesh is going
through hard times.
“People” have grown
too dependent on their
rulers, and the rulers are suffering
from a lack of perspective being
surrounded by sycophants, leading
to disjointed decisions being made
regarding the future of our nation.
On the February 27, the Child
Marriage Restraint Act 2017
was passed despite nationwide
protests and requests from the
more civil parts of our society. In
order to make a decision which
may have devastating effect on the
lives of women, the administration
resorted to a game of semantics to
confuse and confound us.
What kind of a law is it that
allows the parents of a girl who
was raped to marry her off to the
rapist himself?
The state could have delivered
a stern warning by rejecting the
bill, signaling that perpetrators
of violence against women and
girls wouldn’t be spared, and that
the victims of violence would
get better legal and physical
assistance.
A country failing to provide
safety to its citizens should come
as a sobering testimony of the
gross lack of human rights here.
We are now openly fighting every
inch of our way for a pluralist,
liberal way of living.
In Bangladesh, women and
girls are safe nowhere, not even
within their families. We may have
failed to put an end to violence
against women in our society, but
our failure to save children from
being molested and/or sexually
assaulted in madrasas and on the
streets is simply inexcusable.
Bangladesh has been walking
a tightrope for too long, as the
state is, now more than ever,
dangerously close to giving
legitimate space to Islamist
fanatics. It’s worrying that our
politicians are now willfully
diluting the secular foundations
upon which our nation was built to
that end.
The number of women being
subjected to violence, in both
domestic and public settings, is
the highest it has ever been. Islam
has a storied history of oppressing
women, the fact that the
administration is now increasingly
DHAKA TRIBUNE
pandering to Islamists, coupled
with the Child Marriage Restraint
Act, all but makes sure that we
have our own special version of
the Sharia Law in effect.
No. Parading around a battalion
of female police officers at the
UN or pointing out a handful of
ministers in the cabinet wearing
blouses does not count as “female
empowerment.” Far from gender
parity, Bangladesh lacks any
semblance of safety for women
who need to step out of their own
homes to support their families.
Certainly, Islamist fanatics
such as Hefazat, with their
13-point demands against the
empowerment of women, are
celebrating. But Bangladesh is far
from the “happy nation” that the
international audience thinks of
us as.
Growth indicators can only do
so much. •
Jahanara Nuri is a writer and human
rights activist.