Rights Awareness and Action for Women in Bangladesh

The chorus serves as a beacon as we follow a narrow, undulating path, flanked by very meager but clean huts. As it opens up into a clearing we behold a colorful tableau of brightly dressed women sitting in a circle dutifully reciting the legal dictates that gives them access to justice. This is one of BRAC's Human Rights and Legal Education (HRLE) Classes.

The HRLE classes are operated through BRAC's Human Rights and Legal Aid Services which started its journey in 1986 by providing legal education to BRAC's microfinance members. In 1998, it became a complete legal service program by adding the alternative dispute resolutions (ADR) mechanism and legal assistance for poor women and children in court proceedings. At present BRAC’s HRLS program has 541 legal aid clinics in 61 districts across Bangladesh that provide legal aid services to women suffering from gender-based violence and discrimination. The HRLE classes have taught over 3.4 million women across the country.

While Bangladesh is on track to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring gender parity, discrimination against women is still culturally entrenched. The HRLS program aims to create awareness amongst women of their rights and entitlements, and provides legal aid services to enable them to access those right and justice.

The HRLE class today is being taught by Lutfa, a "Shebika" or a community paralegal, and the topic for the day is Inheritance Law. Lutfa has a lot of pride in her job as an HRLE Shebika, and has a very inspiring story. After being trained by BRAC, she utilized her knowledge to help her husband claim his share of his father's property. She also leveraged her enhanced social standing and negotiated with him to have the land jointly titled with both their names -- a rare feat in a country where women are effectively excluded by social and customary practices from direct access to land. The Inheritance Law, which differs by religion, being studied today is indicative of this. According to Islamic law, daughters inherit half as much as sons, while under Hindu law, a widow, or all widows in a polygamous marriage, inherits the same share as a son. Moreover, due to cultural norms Bangladeshi women are unlikely to claim their share of family property unless it is offered to them.

Jaya, a young Hindu girl, sporting a large bindi on her forehead and a three old child on her lap, laughed sardonically when asked if she would inherit any property. “My father will beat me, if I even suggested it”, she said.

Fatima, clad in a bright pink sari was not hopeful either. “I don’t want to fight with my brother over land. I can’t afford to severe ties with him”, she explains. “What if my husband brings home another woman and throws me out? Then where will I go with my children, if not to my brother’s house”.

In rare cases of triumph, such as with Lutfa, the land has given her a sense of security and she's invested her own money to rent a plot of land and run a school for orphaned and abandoned children. It's given her a social standing in the community that she's never had.Lutfa is an ideal role model for the women in her community, and through the class she’s inspired and fostered a collective sense of purpose, action and hope within the women she teaches.

Jamila, the matriarch of the class of 25 women proudly told me how she led her community in stopping the marriage of an underage girl. “We sent the groom back on his horse” she told us, “he could not even get to the bride's house.”

Tania, a shy and pretty seventeen year old smiled when she heard this. “My father wants to marry me off. I came to the HRLE class in the hope that they can help me too.”