BOGRA, Bangladesh, 31 July 2003 — Inspired by success at the top of the political world, women in rural Bangladesh are building economic freedom for themselves, but find their biggest foe is often within the four walls of their home.
Eleven years after her home and farmlands were washed away by the chronic floods that plague this riverine nation, Khadeeja Begum has managed to build a new house and farm to support her family. Her husband, a day laborer, is unable to find work most of the time.
“I have built it with my own income,” Khadeeja says while showing off her four-room, mud-walled house. She financed the 25,000 taka ($430) home with a loan from Bangladesh’s biggest aid group, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC).
She is paying it back from money she earns from poultry breeding, vegetable gardening and a “variety of work”.
Her 12-year-old daughter Momena, one of four children, helps with the work, and dreams of a life of achievement.
Momena says she will become a university graduate and fight for the rights of women. “I want to be much more than what my mother is. I want greater freedom,” she told Reuters.
There are thousands like Khadeeja and Momena in remote villages in Bangladesh’s Bogra district, 220 km north of the capital Dhaka, and in neighboring areas where the lives of the women are slowly transforming.
Many have been inspired by the country’s two leading politicians — Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her predecessor, opposition leader Hasina Wajed. The two women have been ruling the country for the past 12 years.
“The two are shining beacons, spreading light on the distress of women and making efforts to redress it,” said Khadeeja’s neighbor Akhtari Bano.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are encouraging women to stand in local council elections to “give the womens’ emerging social and economic empowerment a stronger footing”, said an official with BRAC.
“We have been able to convince them that public representation is a way to preserve and enhance freedom,” she said.
But grinding poverty — more than half of Bangladesh’s 131 million people live below the poverty line — and problems within the home remain huge hurdles.
“They have to go a long way before they can enjoy greater freedom,” said journalist Hasibur Rahman, who monitors NGO activities and issues concerning women.
In remote villages in the north — and in many other areas where poverty is widespread — women are subject to a range of human rights abuses.
Child marriage and demands from the husband’s family for dowry payments are common. If the wives refuse, men can easily start divorce proceedings on a pretext, leaving the woman with almost no hope of ever remarrying.
“Husbands give them a talak (divorce) for reasons untenable under law and the women suffer for the rest of their lives with their children growing up in tatters,” said one police officer.
“Such abuses are widespread, although declining,” he said.
Poor parents often see their children as an economic burden and sometimes try to arrange their marriages at the age of six or seven. In most cases, the helpless girls come back soon after their husbands or in-laws begin harassing them for dowry money.
While boys still outnumber girls in school by a ratio of 53 to 47, the gender gap has narrowed significantly in recent years under a government program to give stipends to every girl who attends primary and secondary school, the World Bank says.
That gives schoolgirls like Momena a fighting chance of going to university, a quixotic dream at best for earlier generations of Bangladesh women.
Most women have now shed their traditional veils and are competing with men for jobs and fighting for equal rights, said Mohammad Al-Muntazir, an official with Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service, an NGO offering small loans to villagers.
“Today they have some say in family decisions, including the education and marriage of their children,” he said.
Officials said religious leaders and teachers of Islamic schools can play a vital role in mitigating the suffering of women and reducing the divorce rate.
“People in the villages rely on what the Imams (head preacher) at mosques or madrassa teachers say or preach,” said a Bogra official.
“So we are urging them to teach the villagers the way of modern living within the purview of Islam,” he said.
“Islam does not support poverty, rather it asks the believers to earn their own living through honest means and give women an equal status in society.”
One madrassa teacher said: “We do believe in equality of men and women, and are trying to bring them at par without violating the teachings of Islam.”
