Bangladesh News

Women’s rights activist Ayesha Khanam criticised the government for giving in to pressure from fundamentalists on the Women’s Development Policy 2008.

“It’s a setback for the government. They couldn’t muster the courage to say no to a small group of people who violated the emergency rules,” she told The Daily Star in an interview.

“It’s a double standard; it’s contrary to the government’s past promises.”

She said the fundamentalists took to the streets protesting equal rights for women and their access to resources though, interestingly, the two issues were not even included in the policy.

Ayesha hoped that political parties will field more women candidates in the next general election.

Women’s organisations have already given a list of about 60 non-partisan women to the Awami League (AL) to consider them for the AL-led alliance ticket, she said.

They would hand in a similar list to the BNP-led combine, she said adding that the recommended women can contribute a lot to the society, she said.

Ayesha said the women’s organisations had demanded 100 parliamentary seats reserved for women, to be elected through direct election.

“According to the proposal, a voter will have two votes, one for the general seat and the other for electing a woman candidate,” she said.

She said the Election Commission (EC) did not think through the proposal, yet thanked the commission for introducing the provision for ensuring 33 percent representation of women in political parties.

Ayesha warned that a move was on to turn the country into a communal state by “providing political shelter to the Jamaat-e-Islami and forging political alliance with them.”

“Would they have won more than three seats had they contested alone?” she asked.

She said all policy positions of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government, especially those relating to women’s issues, were regressive.

They deleted all positive aspects, like gender parity, from the earlier women’s development policy, she added.

Ayesha regretted that the political parties whose actions led to the 1/11 changeover are not showing any signs of remorse.

“We’ll have to wait a generation or more to get a leadership who will behave themselves logically, rationally and work for a democratic political culture.”