Human Rights Advocacy
Ensuring Access To Information At Local Level
A key underpinning for better livelihood
Shaila Shahid
The importance of information accessibility for establishing people's basic rights is inevitable. The issue is being widely recognised as a prerequisite for people's empowerment in recent years. It gives an overview of the way a person has used information to try and change the status quo, and highlights the challenges that still remain to be tackled. The right to information is also a key underpinning for any democratic governance and is not only fundamental for an open and liberal society but also an effective weapon in the fight against poverty and in accelerating human development.
The people of Bangladesh have very limited access to information and always face difficulties to get it from government and non-government institutions. Though the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression for every citizen but people's right to get access to information is hindered by government officials by showing excuse of the official secrecy act. The influence of the powerful, illiteracy of the people, bureaucracy in organisation, misrepresentation of law are some of the factors that also create barriers in getting access to information. Only the elite and the literate get access to limited information but the illiterate and the marginalised who do not have or adequate means to collect information remain fully ignorant.
In this background Massline Media Centre (MMC), a national NGO, has been implementing a project titled “Ensuring access to information to promote governance for better livelihood” which aims at raising awareness of the mass people regarding information dissemination for better livelihood and good governance with the support of Manusher Jonno Foundation. The main objective of the programme is raising awareness to create demand for information to the grassroots and other citizenry groups and to assess whether the government and non-government organisations have commitment, responsibility and data resources to supply the information as per the demand of the people.
At present the right to information campaign is going on in total 21 districts. Very recently MMC organised a media trip for visiting the grassroots level people to measure the status of the marginalised and the problems they are facing in their every day life for the limitation of information. While visiting the Chalk Sahabdi village under Bolaiyer Char Union in Sherpur district, it has been observed that there is very little transparency and accountability at the local level where it counts the most.
In our country the poor citizens cannot go up to the lowest government functionary and ask how much and for what purpose money is being spent in their village. They have no right to ask for detailed information on expenditure and that is where the corruption begins -- making false receipts and vouchers running into millions. Considering all those factors MMC established one information centre in each district, which is popularly known as “Jano Tathya Ghar” and it is basically situated in the most remote village of the respective district. People have already become benefited largely for the initiative. In Chalk Sahabdi village it has been observed that the information centre is playing now a vital role in bringing a change in day to day life of the marginalised people of that village. MMC is providing four newspapers (which includes three national and one local) daily in the information centre. People from various levels gather in the centre for collecting news and information and also come into different fruitful discussion ranging from their profession to politics etc.
`Jana Tathya Ghar has now become a centre point to the people of the village. Even people take part in discussion on different issues and solve problems which were not being possible till date due to lack of information', said Md. Abdus Samad, retired Head Master of Chalk Sahabdi High School, who regularly visits the information centre.
“How people will live now depends on information they get. And we have to face a great system loss for want of information," comments a Union member. Moreover, "We don't know exactly the implication of right to information. We don't know where we'll complain if we don't get certain government service and who will give us solution," says Maniruzzaman, the team leader of the information centre. He also informed that there is a committee to manage, maintain and monitor the activities of the information centre. The committee organised a monthly meeting from where they identify their problems regarding access to information. Then they organise a workshop at Union level where those problems are discussed and necessary steps taken to contact the relevant department for solving the problems. Maniruzzaman informed that the Chairman of Bolaiyer Char Union Md. Mokhlesur Rahman and the agriculture officer of Sherpur district Mr. Emdadul Haque were relentlessly providing their support to the initiative. Every three-month a seminar is also held at Thana level in presence of the TNO and relevant thana level Govt. officers.
The villagers informed that they are now getting information regarding different jobs and services from the newspaper. After establishing the information centre till date total 12 people of that village got jobs by collecting information from the local newspaper. Few days back, a local elite intentionally filed false complaints against eight innocent villagers mentioning that they had connection in illegally occupying a land of that village. The SI of the nearest police station of the village received the FIR and arrested those persons without investigation. But as some journalists regularly visit the information centre they made a report about the incident in the local newspaper and after that with the intervention of the higher authority those eight innocent villagers were freed as the report clearly stated that a police officer cannot arrest a person without any proper investigation.
Not only that, three months ago a child died by snake bite. After the incident a rumour was spread all over the village that people would die if any family member of that child touches anybody. In this superstitious situation the organiser of the information centre informed the matter to the Chalk Sahabdi health complex. He requested the medical team to come to the village and help them to get rid of the damaging rumour. The doctors came to the village and they explained the matter to the villagers that was not scientific at all. After getting the appropriate assurance the people became conscious and got rid of that myth.
This is not an end. Villagers informed that in rural areas illegal occupancy of land by the elite is very frequent. If any deprived person goes to the mutation office to get legal papers and documents, he or she is just denied. The culture to destroy, conceal, erase, alter or falsify of official records help the corrupt and criminals get rid of legal action. The ignorance of people regarding the necessity of legal documents and lack of sufficient information causes troubles for the people. The culture of secrecy and poor documentation deprives the right person from legalising the ownership of his or her property. It is also alleged that in the court people are bound to pay bribe for information during litigation to corrupt officials and the amount varies from person to person.
There are evidences that non-informed farmers have to suffer from unproductively of rice or other vegetables due to the lack of information regarding various diseases or non-storable characteristics in case of high yielding variety of hybrid seeds. Also there are several Govt. institutions that offer free seed to the farmers. As consumers don't know about the free service delivery system of agriculture office, the corrupt officials take the opportunity of the ignorance of innocent farmers and sell those seed to the farmers and earn profit. Hence this kind of ignorance seriously affected rural people's livelihood.
Information gap between the mainstream citizens and ethnic groups creates a misunderstanding that perpetuates an environment of conflict. Even the situation is severe for women and children. Lack of sufficient information and knowledge about law and religion are the key causes of exploitation on women in the name of fatwas, child marriage, dowry and domestic violence etc. The poor communities are not informed about the legal assistance that are available in each districts to give support to the vulnerable group, helpless people and divorced women, widows and disabled. In many cases, the rural children are deprived of getting access to primary education as their parents are ignorant about the free primary education which is introduced by the Govt.
People's access to information regarding electoral and local governance is also very limited. The voter's right to know the code of ethics of electoral process, nomination system, socio-economic and political status of nominated candidate and their system of accountability to the citizens are not clear at all to the local people.
Lack of information creates powerlessness among the rural people, though the powerlessness lies with illiteracy, poverty and remoteness but it has intrinsic relationship with access to information. It also creates information and power gap between the people and the institutions. As a result people suffer from a sense of alienation. They become confused about where to go for the information regarding health, agriculture, education, employment and even for justice. All these evidences reveal that people's non-access to information reduces the quality of life and livelihood. It also proves that access to information is the most important thing to ensure human rights and good governance.
However the need for access to information has been recognised by the Law Commission of Bangladesh that prepared a working paper in 2002, which now lies with the information ministry but the people of the country is yet to know the fate of the proposal or the law drafting. Timely access to relevant and appropriate information is therefore one of the most fundamental human rights in the fight to advance people's rights. In Bangladesh it is widely understood that accomplishments of the tasks of empowerment and realisation of human rights can not be the responsibility only of the Government. Burden of responsibility is to be shared by enlightened section of the society, private bodies, mass media and the civil society at large. There has to be a collaborative effort from all fronts to bring the desired changes.
Source: Mass Line Media Centre (MMC)
The author is working for Law Desk, The Daily Star.
