More Reflections on Bangladesh – Being A Woman

It was yet another hot day in Bangladesh, and – as usual – relentlessly humid, so that my clothes stuck uncomfortably to my back and everything was damp. The district court was dirty, worn down and crowded with people talking loudly, sitting listlessly on plain wooden benches or just standing around. The typewriters – with all the power cuts it isn’t worth it to upgrade – clacked loudly as experienced clerks typed out depositions on big sheets of paper to be stuffed into paper folders.

What struck me most about the court was the number of women, crowded into the Public Prosecutor’s office or spilling out into the concrete corridor. Many of them cradled babies in their arms, or had small children clinging on to their saris. They had come to the district court to tell their stories; horrific tales of dowry demands, domestic violence, neglect and torture by their husbands and in-laws. They sat, either in silence or chatting to each other, waiting patiently. I was told that many of them would be there all day, just waiting for a chance to talk to the prosecutor or go for a hearing. Very few of them will actually get their cases heard in court. Even fewer will get the justice they seek.

As I stood in the corridor, a woman dressed head to toe in black approached me with her hands outstretched and eyes pleading. She spoke in Bangla. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. English,” I said, but she went on as if I never spoke. Tears came to her eyes as she told me a story I could not understand. I quickly realised that it didn’t matter to her if I understood or not; she just wanted someone to talk to and listen.

A volunteer with a human rights NGO came up to us and began to translate in his halting English. The woman pulled out a small bundle out of her pouch. As she started unfolding it, my first thought was, “This is not going to be good.” But it was just a little piece of a mirror. “Oh, that’s not so bad!”

Then the volunteer translated: “Her husband stabbed her with the broken mirror. This was a piece the doctor pulled out of her stomach.”

Oh God.

Each of the women at the court that day had a story like that. Broken arms, cracked skulls, attempted drowning… and they were the brave ones who dared to go to court. Scattered across Bangladesh are women who are suffering behind closed doors, nursing wounds and enduring never-ending psychological torture, simply because there is nowhere else for them to turn. Women in Bangladesh are economically dependent and socially dependent on their men: fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands, sons. Even the lucky ones who get educated and find work have to be married, because Bangladeshi society simply does not recognise “single women”. And in a stubbornly patriarchal society like Bangladesh women all over the country are constantly being repressed, abused and neglected; ironic in a nation with a female Prime Minister.

Observing such a society brought into sharp relief the environment I had been brought up in, and made me realise how lucky I am to have been born into a society with more gender equality. I have never in my life – yet, anyway – felt disadvantaged or discriminated against because I was female. I have had the opportunity and the privilege of higher education, and to choose my own path in my life. I make my own decisions and my family never pressures me into anything I don’t want to do. I’m not being pushed to be more domesticated, or to be more “ladylike”, or – God forbid! – to be married. I am recognised as my own person and respected as such. These are all things that I take for granted every day, and yet for a Bangladeshi girl in a rural village, it is like an impossible dream.

Dowry violence. Acid throwing. Eve teasing. Sexual harassment. Rape. Burning with petrol/kerosene. Lashing. These are things that are too horrible for me to even imagine, and yet for many women in Bangladesh they are very possible dangers. Last year there were over 10 reported cases of women being killed in dowry-related violence each month. And that’s only the reported cases; hundreds more go unnoticed, hushed up by families and villages. NGOs like Odhikar do quarterly human rights reports and send out Human Rights Defenders to the villages to offer help and support, but there is only so much they can do. The uphill battle is more like a vertical cliff face. It will be years before the women of Bangladesh see anywhere near the same sort of gender equality that I live every day.

So today I am taking this blog entry as my opportunity to count my blessings and recognise my incredible good fortune to have been born in Singapore, where I have been allowed to chase my own goals, and be myself with no apologies.