{"id":6620,"date":"2025-11-05T13:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T13:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/?p=6620"},"modified":"2025-11-05T13:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T13:15:07","slug":"after-july-uprising-bangladeshs-women-decry-marginalisation-and-push-for-direct-seats-fair-funding-and-safety-in-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/?p=6620","title":{"rendered":"After July Uprising, Bangladesh\u2019s Women Decry Marginalisation and Push for Direct Seats, Fair Funding and Safety in Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than five decades after independence, women\u2019s presence in Bangladesh\u2019s national politics remains thin, and many activists say the current system of reserved seats has failed to deliver real power. In a sweeping reassessment of the past year, women leaders and commentators argue that the post-July mass uprising\u2014hailed as an opening for deep reform\u2014has largely sidelined women from decision-making, even as they played visible roles on the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The critique is blunt: reserved seats became \u201crewards\u201d for parties and \u201cornamental\u201d representation for women, entrenching dependency rather than leadership. Advocates contend that if reserved seats are to continue at all, they must be filled by direct popular vote<\/strong>, while parties are pressed to nominate far more women for general constituencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expectations surged during and after the July events, when women\u2014students, professionals and caregivers\u2014organised, protected fellow protesters and often stepped into operational leadership after the killings that galvanised public anger. Yet, when an interim architecture took shape, women were scarcely present: the advisory council had few women, none of the three student advisers were women, and televised announcements at the Raju Sculpture in Dhaka showed a near all-male stage, with women seated out of frame on the steps below. In subsequent weeks, women reported curtailed movement, harassment on streets and online, and male-dominated panels in forums and seminars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historical lineage of women\u2019s resistance frames today\u2019s demands. From Pritilata Waddedar and Begum Rokeya to poet-activist Sufia Kamal, whose 1929 letter declared that redress against entrenched injustice would come not from \u201ctwo pages of writing\u201d but from rebellion<\/strong>, campaigners say the recent uprising reaffirmed a century-long tradition of women leading at moments of rupture. The question they pose now: \u201cWhere did those women go?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criticism also centres on institutional processes since July. A long-promised Women\u2019s Reform Commission<\/strong> was delayed; members say they faced intimidation once their report appeared, and that the government failed to back them publicly. Recommendations from that report, activists add, were not incorporated<\/strong> into the formal consensus process. Meanwhile, parties again missed the long-standing requirement\u2014set out in the Representation of the People Order\u2014to achieve 30% women in party committees by 2024<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new \u201cJuly Charter\u201d has intensified frustration among gender advocates. While it preserved reserved seats, it introduced only a 5% minimum<\/strong> for nominating women candidates\u2014well short of the 33%<\/strong> threshold sought by women\u2019s groups. Critics call the document an \u201celite boys\u2019 club charter,\u201d noting that more than 30 political organisations, many with limited public support, were invited to negotiations, yet women\u2014who comprise half the population\u2014were barely represented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Structural barriers continue to deter women from contesting: high campaign costs, patronage networks, and a political culture described as \u201cmoney-and-muscle driven.\u201d Women who juggle wage work and household duties face a \u201ctriple burden\u201d when activism is added, compounded by limited spousal support and persistent inequities in property and resource control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s organisations are coalescing around a set of concrete reforms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n