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Women's lot

20 November 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By A citizen Dhaka
20 November 2005, 18:00 PM
Brutality to and abuse of women seems to be a common thing in Bangladesh if one scans the daily newspapers. Most of us generally take it for granted, and shrug it off as unfortunate event. Only a few NGOs and Women Groups are picking up the issue; with unfortunately little impact, particularly in rural areas where it is endemic! Discrimination, along with, emotional and physical abuse is the lot of our fellow sisters in society. One wonders if women's social position in our country has degraded or improved over the last decade. The few good examples in mostly urban locations do not reflect the overall gloomy picture. Even in cities workingwomen are only grudgingly recognised, purely as necessary bread earners rather than equal partners of men.

Physical beatings, torture, kidnapping, acid attack and even rape is a multiple daily occurrence, reported in the press. With insignificant prospect of social and moral rehabilitation; the unfortunate female victims of these cruelties are mostly left to themselves, causing irreversible mental agony leading to suicide on occasions. Suicide being an unnatural cause of death is a known and reported event. Unknown however are many victims left with a broken heart, a broken family and a broken home. Very often they are ignored, shunned and even ostracized by their own family!

The unexplainable fallacy is that while Islam preaches respect and equality for women; with over eighty percent Muslims, our record of cruelty to women is much higher than many non-Muslim countries! While Islam has made inroads in Bangladesh education, politics and society, this un-Islamic behaviour and maltreatment of women have possibly increased over the same period.

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An unfortunate fact is that while religion based educational institutions have proliferated ten-fold, the un-Islamic behaviour towards women particularly in rural areas have markedly increased! Urban areas with a more secular educational background show a lesser trend of un-Islamic attitude to women. This scenario presents a paradox, which although unfortunate, is a fact. It should be an eye opener for the mentors and teachers of Islamic based religions institutions. They should study and find out why this paradoxical un-Islamic trend of cruelty towards women persists in our society.

I wonder if it is not a subconscious counter reaction of the prejudiced ultra conservatives among us? Seeing the minority of visible progressive women in Bangladesh; it may trigger some psychological phenomena along the lines of HG Well's "Dr Jeykill and Mr. Hyde" scenario. I can only guesses, and could well be totally wrong. Only skilled psychological researchers can provide an objective analysis about this aberration of un-Islamic behaviour in a predominantly Islamic society, to remove this evil and criminal tendency of ours.