Desk Report,
How women will enter politics, how many seats they will get, is being negotiated like a fish market: Samina Lutfa
How women will enter politics, what their fate will be, how many seats they will get – these are the things men are discussing. These are being decided by bargaining like in a fish market.
How women will enter politics, how many seats they will get, is being negotiated like a fish market: Samina Lutfa
This is what Dhaka University’s sociology department professor Samina Lutfa said at a roundtable discussion titled ‘Women’s seats in the National Parliament and women’s political empowerment’ at the Prothom Alo office in Karwan Bazar in the capital on Saturday. This roundtable discussion was organized by Prothom Alo. Prothom Alo’s senior reporter Nazneen Akhtar presented a concept paper on women’s seats in parliament.
Samina Lutfa said that she did not expect much from the consensus commission, saying, ‘When political parties go to the commission meetings and speak there, the picture I see is that it is a whole boys’ club. All the men are sitting here all around and they are sitting there deciding the fate of women. We were getting news that if you want 15, we can give you 10. Is this bargaining in a fish market?’ She also said, ‘Men are sitting and deciding how women will enter politics. Nothing could be more ridiculous than this.’ Samina Lutfa mentioned that the political parties of Bangladesh have failed to give women their dignity. She said, ‘If we consider it from the point of view of human rights, the parties have failed to understand it. I think the political parties of Bangladesh have never made a bigger historical mistake than this. At the same time, they all took a terrible conservative stance and they will have to pay the responsibility and the cost for it.’
Regarding the delay in responding, the professor said, ‘When these commission meetings were being held, we had to actually go and sit there and surround them. Then they would have been forced to listen to us, but we did not do that.’ Stating that women students who have emerged from this unprecedented uprising should also come forward, the professor said, those who will be elected should come forward for their own place. They should explain that women’s issues are not taken for granted.
Samina Lutfa commented that there was no discussion on the report of the Women’s Affairs Mission and its proposals in the Consensus Commission and that it was an incredibly irresponsible act. She said, “The government gave the Women’s Commission the responsibility to do this work and they did that work. Then, during the terrible attack that was launched on them, the government, by remaining completely silent during the entire attack, has proven that they are not really with women. They are with those people who want to stop the movement of women, the progress of women.”
