Progress of women and Jannatul Ferdous

Jannatul Ferdous, a Bangladeshi writer and human rights activist, has held her place into a list, made by BBC, of 100 most influential women in the world. She makes film too. Although I don't personally know her, if the BBC hadn't created this list, I wouldn't even be familiar with her name. It is a shame for us. Incorporating herself to the list made her delighted of herself, and made us proud of her as well. Because other women on the list are influential, such as- US first lady Micheal Obama, Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmatí, Artificial Intelligence or AI expert Timnit Gebru and Hollywood actress America Ferrera.

Jannatul is an activist who has survived an accident, acknowledged the media. Jannatul had an fire incident in 1997, as she was cooking, her scarf caught fire. Sixty percent of her body got burn injury at that time. Some parts of her body were distorted by fire. She had to go through about 50 surgeries. In spite of these obstacle, she became a filmmaker, writer and disabled rights activist, which is a matter of great joy for all of us. Aside of this, Jannatul is a founder member of a human rights organization named Voice and Views that works within burnt women. I was astounded to learn how strong a burned woman could be and understood that this was a pledge to the courage of women.

However, it hurts when we come to know that Jannatul had to be bullied for her injury. She did not get married for these kinds of obstacles. Jannatul is not alone, many other women like her facing the same reality in our society. Women are being tortured both at home and outside world. Although we have woman prime minister, opposition party leader, member of parliament, speaker and minister in Bangladesh. In our country women are also holding positions like government secretary, district commissioner, UNO, DIG of police, vice chancellor of public universities, judge of high court and so on. Women are joining into security forces, navy and air force. Many women from several states are performing duties in peacekeeping operations of the UN. Everyone is aware of our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's passion for sports and games. Women and girls reached wonderful achievements in the arena of sports including cricket and football during her regime. Yet, violence against women did not come to an end.
Human race started the journey of civilization on earth together. Gender discrimination did not exist in the beginning. Pride of being human was there but it was not consistent. Human went through ups and downs and women became excluded from the mainstream of mankind. Phallocentrism became prevalent. Men started to dominate on the basis of religion and economy. These areas made women marginal. These are the prime factors of this issue. Aside of these other factors are playing vital role in this crisis.

Women and girls are still oppressed in the male dominated society Violence against women, women trafficking and violation of women rights are visible in the society as a course. People torture other people for the lake of values. People of our country expect that those who violate women will be punished lawfully.

Befor attacking the European club, Pritilata Wadeddar, a rebel against the British colonial rulers, gave a speech. "Women of the nation are now determined that they would not be weak anymore," she said in one part of her speech. Armed with weapons, women will fight along with men against the colonial rulers and will prepare themselves according to the objective. I'm moving forward on my path with this belief.

Ila Mitra joined the revolution of cultivators in 1946 to get their rights over land and the crop. Pakistan police captured her on January 7, 1950. Policed raped her. She depicted the torture occurred on her in a statement in front of the people of the country. The statement reads- ‘I was arrested on January 7 and taken to Nachole the next day. Police bitten me on the way and kept me into a cell. The snatched all my clothes and detained me there.’ Therefore, it can be claimed that women have always been a part of movements and revolutions. No great achievement could be reached without women.

We found that sometimes women held power in the male dominated power-structure of the state and got stuck into that. Indira Gandhi from India is a prove of this. In 1974, during her regime, India flourished nuclear energy. India originated nuclear power in the south Asian region by that event. Indian writer Arundhati Roy wrote in an article during Indo-Pakistan war in 1998, ‘nuclear power exercise is a game of war, this article is for peace.’ Her plea to humankind was for being sensitive. If it is so, why does only women rights are being talked about? Where there is oppression, there must be an issue of rights. The root of the suppression of women is deep inside. Because the tendency of the society is to treat women as women, rather than human.

Women proved themselves from the time of the movement of mother language. Women have no history of being defeated in our country. Women have their contribution in the language movement in 1952. However, we are positive that our prime minister will hold the authority to protect the rights of women as she is doing till now. We believe that in this level of development, conscious men and women will work together and step towards development together in upcoming days.

We achieved a great deal of development in the last two decades. These are infrastructural development. If we cannot embed the development of humanity alongside, the whole human race become fenced. If we cannot prevent rape and oppression of women in coming years, we would be embarrassed in future. Why do we have such high rate of rape cases? What is the crisis? This is because perverted mind and low condition of law and order. Women are often looked down upon and treated as commodities. They attack women whenever they are alone. Sometimes the rapists kill women after raping them. But still, they do not face trial or punishment. They got freed illegally.

If the past cases were trialed properly, we did not have to witness this kind of ferocious actions. From infants to old age women, women are being tortured regardless of age. We do not even know all the incidents. We only react while someone close to us are being attacked. This particular occurrence took place for the same reason. However, we claimed that this violent act should be acknowledged and condemned. It should brought under speed trial and accused should be punished, but it did not happen ever.

Author: Writer and President, Bangla Academy