Human Rights monitor
CEDAW and Bangladesh
Awareness necessary to promote women's rights
Nurul Haque
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Photo: SK Enamul Haq |
18 December 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It entered into force as an international treaty on 3 September 1981 after the twentieth country had ratified it. Bangladesh is one of the 185 countries which signed their commitments to the convention. On the 6th of November 1984, Bangladesh ratified CEDAW with reservations on Articles 2, 13.1[a], 16.1[c] and [f] on the basis of religious sentiments. While the government feels that these provisions conflict with religious Islamic laws, women feel these reservations violate upon the protection and promotion of their rights. Women's organizations have demanded withdrawal of all reservations and full implementation of the Convention.
The Convention was the conclusion of more than thirty years of work by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a body established in 1946 to monitor the situation of women and to promote women's rights. The Commission's work has been instrumental in bringing to light all the areas in which women are denied equality with men. These efforts for the advancement of women have resulted in several declarations and conventions, of which CEDAW is the central and most comprehensive document. It has 30 articles and 3 basic principles.
Over all achievement
We strive to achieve women-secure environment in Bangladesh. In the mean time some works have been done by the Government of Bangladesh with support of some development organizations. We can mention some special areas where we achieved positive result like, women employment, women capacity building, increased women literacy rate, enlarged awareness among the women on different social issues and women participation in decision making. It is not significant but we have started. The UNDP Gender Development Index (GDI) for 2004 ranked Bangladesh 110 among 144 countries, an increase of 13 positions since 1999. This improvement reflects a closing of the gap between men and women in key indicators such as life anticipation.
A significant gender disparity persists in both income and human poverty, especially at the lower end of income distribution. Overall Bangladesh's performance with regard to achieving gender equality and women's empowerment (MDG 4) remains mixed. There has been a narrowing of the gender gap in most social MDG indicators in general and in the education sector in particular, where, as a result of targeted government policies, female enrolment rates in primary and secondary schools exceeds those for males. However, in other areas such as economic and political participation and adult literacy, much still remains to be done to ensure the rights to survival, livelihood and participation.
Government of Bangladesh also took some legal initiatives such as:
creating Directorate on Women's Affairs in 1984, enacting Family Courts Law in 1985, enacting Muslim Family Laws (Amendment) Ordinance in 1992, declaring compulsory primary education for women in 1992, declaring full-free schooling up to class-VIII in 1993, declaring food for education in 1993-94, providing stipends to girl students from class-VIII to class-X in 1994-97, enacting the Special Tribunal Act in 1995, allowing women to contest in direct election in three reserved seats in the Union Parishad in 1997, undertaking the National Plan of Action on Women Advancement on the basis of CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) in 1998, enacting the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act in 2000, enacting the Acid Crime Prevention Act and the Acid Control Act in 2002.
A unified effort is more effective than several isolated approaches. This the women learned after proving the success of their advocacy efforts. They were successful in urging the government to withdraw its reservation on Articles 13 [a] and 16.1 [f]. The other provisions remain the top priority of women's organizations and NGOs in their lobbying and advocacy activities. Women have begun to be vigilant and participative in political decision-making. The government's action to consult with women's groups and activists for the preparation of the country report on CEDAW and the integration of CEDAW in domestic legislation proves that women's voices can no longer be ignored. This involvement in the law reform process is by far a great achievement for women. Finally, the effort has united the women and other NGOs in articulating the promotion of women's equal rights.
Challenges of implementation
Even though Bangladesh ratified the Convention as early as November 1984, no significant steps have been taken to incorporate the obligations under the Convention into national legislation. No systematic steps have been taken for extensive awareness and action programmes to create an enabling environment for the advance of CEDAW. On the other hand some barrier decreased CEDAW implementation, such as arsenic contamination in rural areas, child marriages, lack of women employment at policy making level, maternity leave is not recognized at private sector specially garments sector, no good intention to withdraw reservation on articles 2, and 16-1 (c) of CEDAW, violence against women, existing child marriage and polygamy. We think that the three significant areas of systematic discrimination against women are threatening CEDAW progress need concentration more.
Obstacles to Eliminating Discrimination: Continued reservations to Article 2, which constitutes the core principle of equality and non-discrimination, are an obstacle to eliminating discriminatory national laws and public policy. This Article is not inconsistent with the guarantees given in the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh; the principle of equality is there in the National Policy for Advancement of Women, and the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme. Withdrawal of reservations to Article 2 is an essential condition for the elimination of discriminatory laws and policies.
Citizenship Rights: Our second concern is that two outdated laws, The Bangladesh Citizenship Act, 1951 and The Bangladesh Citizenship (Temporary Provisions) Order 1972, deprive women of equal rights in citizenship. The prescription that the right of citizenship be passed on to children from “father and grandfather” is clearly inconsistent with constitutional guarantees of equality in Article 28(1 & 2). Although Article 6 of the Constitution states that citizenship will be determined and regulated by law, but its intention cannot be to create different classes of citizenship. These laws are also inconsistent with Bangladesh's ratification of Article 9 of CEDAW.
Security of Employment: Migrant women workers work in insecure and unsafe conditions. In 1998, the government placed a ban on the employment overseas of women domestic workers. This has violated the freedom of movement of women and affected their economic status. It might also have led to trafficking and therefore could not be consistent with Article 6.
Monitoring and reporting
The implementation of the Convention is monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The Committee's mandate and the administration of the treaty are defined in Articles 17 to 30 of the Convention. The Committee is composed of 23 experts nominated by their governments and elected by the State parties as individuals "of high moral standing and competence in the field covered by the Convention".
At least every four years, the State parties are expected to submit a national report to the Committee, indicating the measures they have adopted to give effect to the provisions of the Convention. During its annual session, the Committee members discuss these reports with the government representatives and explore with them areas for further action by the specific country. The Committee also makes general recommendations to the State parties on matters concerning the elimination of discrimination against women. All through fulfilling its reporting obligations to CEDAW, the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) has submitted an initial report and second, third and forth periodic reports. Bangladesh of late submitted its fifth periodical report to the CEDAW Committee. The report highlighted some achievements in some areas like empowerment of women in the local government, full free studentship and scholarships for girls, four months maternity leave for women in government jobs, violence against women etc.
Recommendations
* Withdrawal of reservation to articles 2 and 16-1(c) from CEDAW as early as possible.
* Increased awareness raising programme among the people about the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
* Reform child marriage law in current country context
* Needed gender and development training for Government official specially police, administration and judiciary cadre.
* Electronic media can increase CEDAW issues in their different programmes like Spot, Drama, Talk show, News, Debate, and Magazine for awareness raising of people.
* Print media have also capacity to promote women rights issues that's why newspaper editors can allocate a page for women everyday.Independent Women's Rights Commission be constituted to monitor compliance with equality provisions, and results of measures to eliminate discriminatory laws, policies and practices.
* The government set up a task force which would propose appropriate legal amendments, within a stipulated time frame, to make laws consistent with the provisions of CEDAW and the Constitution.
* To combat violence against women the most effective avenue can be the country's law as the Constitution of the country grants equal rights to women.
* Approach of implementers of law needs to be changed. They are to understand that violence against women is a 'public' matter as it halts the overall economic development of the country.
* Bangladesh needs to urgently design schemes for compensation, insurance or safety nets for women workers.
We have been working for the last 24 years for promoting and protecting women's rights. We are didn't achieve lot of things but we have started our journey to reach our destination. We confident, today or tomorrow we can see women are respected by the other sex. It is very important to ensure women's rights. Today, 8th March is International Women Day.
Every year we celebrate it with due respect. We arrange lots of programmes for ensuring our participation in international women's day. We give speech in discussion sessions that we should respect our women, women participation is very important, women empowerment is necessary, etc. After passing off 8th March we forgot everything of also our commitment to expedite CEDAW implementation. Today is the high time, this year we won't forget anything, and we remember it 365 days of the year. It should be our commitment as well as our dream and expectation.
The writer is Program Coordinator-Enabling Environment, Plan Bangladesh Jaldhaka Program Unit, Jaldhaka, Nilphamari.
