Bangladesh on youtube: the not so light side...

I hope it's clear that, despite all my complaints about the traffic and the chaos, I love Bangladesh. I certainly try to convey through my writing the endless things I appreciate about this country, its people and my life here.

But perhaps this has a price. I'm not sure I do a good enough job of being critical of Bangladesh. As with all countries, there are certainly things to be criticized; corruption and a fairly dysfunctional political system top the list. But what I want to be critical of today is about violence. Specifically, violence against women.

In the work I am doing at the moment, I am more exposed to the issues women face and the root causes of women's inability to access employment, services, even public spaces like markets. I was surprised when I first came to Bangladesh to find market places crawling with men. Men selling, men buying, women... nowhere to be seen. I learned of course that this is because the women are all right where they are meant to be: at home.

What I didn't fully understand were the real reasons behind women's confinement to the home. I assumed of course that it was simply a question of religious and cultural values. While this is undoubtedly true, what I am now uncovering is the huge role that the very real threat of harassment and violence plays. When I speak to women about the obstacles they face in accessing public infrastructure and services in urban areas, they talk about how it isn't safe to go outside because they might be harassed, abused, raped or even killed. Many of the young girls in Bangladesh who don't go to school are kept home because of the incessant 'eve teasing' they face at school. The fact that they have a special term for the sexual harassment of women and girls is perhaps the best indicator of how prevalent it is. Even 'supportive' husbands who want their wives to enjoy more liberties are reluctant to give them permission to go out in public because they fear for their well being. Recently, I have also found myself being the target of an increasing amount of sexual harassment in Dhaka, most often from educated young men who somehow learned to speak English but not to be respectful of women...

In addition to the abuse women face in the public domain, the violence and abuse they face at home is often far worse. There are few reliable statics about domestic violence - in a system where punishment is practically non-existent, most of it goes unreported - but researchers estimate that over 40% of women in Bangladesh suffer from domestic violence. Most often, violence against women on this level relates to dowry.

Despite being illegal and condemned by the Qur'an, the practice of paying a man's family for the 'burden' of marrying a daughter is still incredibly widespread. In many cases, families promise a dowry for their daughters that far exceeds their financial capabilities. They pay a small portion of it up front and when they are unable to pay the remainder, the violence starts. Not only husbands, but also inlaws, including and often featuring mother-in-laws, will beat, torture and often eventually kill young brides in an effort to get more money out of her parents. Acid attacks are becoming an ever more popular form of abuse in cases of dispute over dowry and suicides are a common occurrence.

Interestingly, research on dowry in Bangladesh has shown that it is the number one factor putting families into poverty or keeping them there, and yet receiving dowry does not have the opposite effect - it is almost never a pathway out of poverty. Despite its net negative economic effect and its obviously harmful social effects, there are little efforts being made to tackle the social ill that is dowry. I'm not sure quite what it is that prevents us as development workers from tackling such cultural issues, but we seem to be hesitant to do so...

So, back to youtube, but this time a more somber presentation - a report by Aljazeera on dowry and acid attacks in Bangladesh.