Gender Issues in Bangladesh

By Dr. Zobaida Akhter

Family is natural and historical shelter for the people. We know that all types of education originate from the family. When a child born then he or she started gradually to understand everything by following their parents. The reflection of the behavioral attitude between the parents integrated in the children. That is why parents should take care of rearing and bearing of the children and should be conscious in giving them education and imparted values to them. In any cases there should not be developed within them the idea that the girl is subordinate to the boys. No parents should give privilege to the son only. Our society is mainly patriarchal in nature, so that either father or any other male person dominated the family. As a result discrimination develops between the boys and girls, boys are considered to be an asset and the girls are considered to as a liabilities of the family. It is very stereotyping thinking of the society that only the mother and daughter should work household work and the father or the son will earn and govern the family. So discrimination starts from the family. Family is the strongest driving force for moulding the children into the right direction. If the family’s impact is negative on this regard, then we could  not expect  any justice to society. In the rural area of Bangladesh, the thinking is like this that the son will conceive the name of father and girl will not because she will go to her husband’s home. From religious and ethical perspective everyone should know that both boys and girls are the creation of God, so they are essentially same. Biological difference is not a point of discrimination for the girl it complements each other. The differences that apparently seen in the society is artificially created by the patriarchal society. This type of discrimination stops the progress of the women as well as the society. So lets start thinking positively and aware eveyone of the family to treat with son and daughter equally. Family is original and historical shelter for the people. We know that all types of education originate from the family. When a child That is why both parents should take care of rearing and bearing of the children and should be conscious in giving them education and imparted values to them. In any cases the parents should not developed any concept the children that  the sister is subordinate to the brothers.There are many instances of gender inequality in the family which originates from the inherent nature  and preconceived idea of the  people. For your better understanding, one example is given below:

From beginning of the creation, the family and state have be developed by joint collaboration between the men and women. In the primitive society the women only do household works and rearing and bearing the children. Gradually everything is changing; with the increase of the necessity, today’s women are working both in private and public field. But still they do not achieve the same status in the public and private field. UN charter and later on in 1948, 10 December in the Universal Declaration has been known as human rights bill. Its objective was two---1) To flourish the basic rights and possible talents 2) and to implement it through international process.

In 1979, 18 December the general assembly of UN has declared this convention or bill considering the issue of discrimination against women. Let’s now we look into the matter, why CEDAW is so important? Before this there were many convention but those did not get priority because those were not based on human rights.


 * CEDAW is the only bill or contract which speaks about women issue
 * By equality in CEDAW means equality of law and practical equality
 * It determines the international standard regarding women rights.
 * CEDAW gives the complete definition about the discrimination against women.
 * It put equal importance to remove the discrimination on the private and public of women.
 * The supporting countries of CEDAW are legally bound to implement the CEDAW

CEDAW speaks about the equality of law and practical utility, we should not exclude the child's right. In 1989 this convention has established the rights and the status of the children from international perspective. By this convention all types of basic rights of the children are reserved. According to this convention, following rights of the children are ensured:


 * Rights for name---Every child has right for their own name and the name of their nationality
 * Rights on their parents
 * To get help for the lonely and orphan child.
 * Rights for education—every child has aright for primary education. And they have also rights for secondary and vocational education.
 * Rights for healthy environment
 * Rights for food and shelter
 * Rights to get additional help for the disabled child
 * Rights for health and treatment
 * Rights for games
 * Rights to refrain from hard work
 * Rights to refrain from sex violence
 * Rights to get rid of inhumane behavior
 * Rights to remain safe from war
 * Rights to express their own opinion.

We have already dicussed about the rights of the women and children according to CEDAW and Convention on the Rights of the Child,1989.In our constitution the rights of women and children was well reflected. But the question arises to what extent actually they are implemented in the real life. After 37 years of liberation war still the women are discriminated in the society. To remove the discrimination, all of us should understand about CEDAW. Once we understand the importance of CEDAW, it will be easier to resolve the problem. The children are the future generation of Bangladesh, who will lead the country, so our duty is to reserve their rights. Only some form of sacrifice, affection, and sympathy could reserve the rights of the children. The constitution of a country is a holy treaty, so we should be respectful to our constitution and hence could ensure the basic rights of the women and the children.

The question may arises that how could we ensure the implementation of the rights of women and child. If we can aware the children who are the future citizen of the society, we could ultimately achieve the destination.The goals of education for All (EFA) are currently concerned with equality. If children are excluded from access to education, they are denied of their human rights and prevented from developing their talents and interest in different dimensions. Bangladesh is committed to EFA and Dakar Framework and UN Millennium Goals for 2015. Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girl’s full and equal access to basic education of good quality is one of the major goal of Dakar framework. A significant achievement of the last decade was to attain gender parity in primary school enrolment. Other components are improvement in  gross and net enrolment in primary education and reduction in dropout and improvement in completion of the cycle, encouraged by provision of free textbooks to all students, food for education and lately stipends for stipends for poor children. Apparently many positive changes have been achieved but in reality some discrimination still remains in the different educational areas in Bangladesh which we much addressed to the students so that they could identified the problem themselves.

National Curriculum and textbook Board (NCTB) had already made some progress towards gender-balanced curriculum and textbooks. They have adopted policy to change the textbooks in order to make it more gender-sensitive. They had done much more progress in making a basic changes in the text, content, instructional design and in overall curriculum. The changes that will be recommended are not any radical or basic change. The suggestions are given to make the textbook and curriculums more gender balanced and gender-sensitive. Childs formal education started from the primary education, so the learning materials, environment and the attitude of the teachers are very important. To make healthy child with healthy and positive attitude and make them understand that there are no difference between men and women. So children lets start thinking about the relation of men and women. Lets try to identify some of the examples that should not begender biased.


 * The pictures of boys and girds should not be placed in a certain manner, which implies the functionally defined role of boy and girl. We should know that anything pre-set or pre-defined idea has no scope of changes towards development.
 * Any description regarding girl’s beauty and boy’s strength should not be emphasized.
 * There are many female freedom fighters and suffers in liberation war. Their name and story should be included in the textbook.
 * The activities of the women actually perform in the field and home should be recognized and mentioned.

There should be good harmony between male and female teachers. They should Respect each other, because what children learn from their teachers reflect this In their daily lives. In the rural areas where people are somewhat superstitious. So if there are more female teachers in the class, the parents will feel secured to send the daughter in the school. Bangladesh Govt. has taken strong initiative to fulfill the 60% quota for female teachers in the primary education and 30% for second. But practically it has not been implemented. There are many causes behind this. it hard for the female, so they do not pass.
 * The written exam and interview which the teachers faced
 * Transfer system is the barrier for female teachers because they could not ignore their household responsibility.
 * Sometime provision of maternity leave discourages the employer to give job to female.
 * Finally, Female themselves have negative attitude towards public work. They are habituated to confine within the four walls.

Sometimes the teachers behave discriminated attitude towards the students, what makes a student disinterested for teaching and attending the classroom.. I believe that you have also face this type of problems. These types of behavior are:


 * Sometimes the teachers prefer the boys to be a captain of the class. Because they think that only boys have a leadership quality. This type of attitude depressed the girls and make them parasite.
 * When the teachers teaches in the class they only concentrate on the boy students and ask them question and ask them to write in the blackboard.. This is also gender discriminated attitude.
 * Sometimes when the girl student could not prepare their task for burden in the household activities, teacher even female teachers do not handle the class sensitively and softly.
 * In the coeducation system, sometimes the sitting arrangement of the boys and girls is separate. The impact of this will create in the mind of the students that they should be different from every perspective.From the very childhood if this type of differences are encouraged by the society, it will continue life long and violence against women will be common picture of the society. As we know teachers are the friends, philosophers and guide for the students, Teachers should get training on gender-balanced attitude.According to Islam the rights and duties of Islam is same and one should complement each other. But practically in the society and the implementation of law, women are still facing discrimination. Lets learn what Islam says about theequality of men and women and how it encourage gender equality.

Islam is completely based on unity and equality. The men and women should stay together on the basis of cooperation and sacrifice. They are the creation of same God that is why their deeds will be justified from same angle. In Islam gender equality is understood from different perspective:

•	Equality from creation perspective

The creation of men and women is from men and women. Both are responsible for giving birth to a child. When they are born, they born equally then in the society they should establish as a citizen with full rights and duties towards society and state.Islam believes that all men and women after death will go back to their original place that is to God and they will be treated equally based on their good and bad deeds.

•	Rights of Women in Islam

All types of rights for women in Islam are ensured. Among them the right for equal opportunity, social rights, economic rights and religious rights. One thing you should know that in Islam not only rights of women are ensured but it has been mentioned that to violate women’s right is the violation of human right.

•	 Rights for Talents and Religious rights

Islam permits equal freedom of thinking for men and women. They should have equal rights of decision making in any issue. There is no pressure in Islam; it is mentioned in the Qu’ran. In the Qu’ran all the good and bad deeds are metioned, so both men and women have freedom to choice the deeds according to their wish. God has given everybody the sense of judgment

•	Social and Economic rights

Islam encourages the equal participation of men and women in all the social activities. Both men and women could contribute to the development of society according to their capacity.

•	Rights to Education

Love for knowledge and search for knowledge is compulsory for men and women. Knowledge and Islam complement each other. Islam says those who are wise they can understand religion better than who are not. In Islam emphasis has been given for equal opportunity and same education for both men and women.

•	Rights to Property

Both men and women have same rights on their own income. They have also same rights on their inherited property.

•	Rights to work Islam says a woman can work in any profession.

•	Rights to marriage

Both men and women have rights to give consent for their marriage according to their wish.

•	Political rights

Both men and women have rights to accept which is good for the state and reject the bad one. Islam permits women to go in the battlefield and it was practiced in Islam.

Most of the countries in the world have accepted ethically about the equal rights of men and women. But due to ignorance in some area, we could not find its practical implementation. If we consider the issue in the light of Islam, we will see there are no hindrances in the progress of this issue.