Speakers at a roundtable discussion on Saturday stressed that women鈥檚 right to family property and public resources, including khas land, forest resources and aquatic resources, must be ensured.
They also called on the political parties to include issues related to women鈥檚 land rights, recognition of women farmers for their agricultural work, and equal pay for women in their manifestos for the coming national election.
Their concerns were voiced at a discussion marking International Day of Rural Women jointly organised by the Association for Land Reform and Development and Stand for Her Land.
The discussion titled 鈥楤angladeshi women鈥檚 rights in land, agriculture, natural resources and property: things to be done by the government and civil society鈥� was held at the CIRDAP auditorium in Dhaka city.
Their demands also include equal rights for women in family property, inclusion of female heirs鈥� names in land registrations, abolition of the condition requiring a 鈥榗apable son鈥� for widows and women abandoned by their husbands to qualify in the priority list of landless families under the Khas Land Management and Settlement Policy 1997, and prioritisation of landless rural poor women and plainsland ethnic minorities in the allocation of agricultural khas land.
ALRD deputy executive director Rowshan Jahan Moni presenting the keynote paper said that while in the country, inheritance property distribution was based on religion, women, including Hindu and ethnic minority women, often received less than what they deserved under the law.
They also faced hassles in obtaining their rightful property, she said.
Having cited the 2022 Labour Force Survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, she said that the survey found 58 per cent of the country鈥檚 agricultural labour force consisted of women, while 78 per cent of the total female labour force was engaged in agriculture.
Despite the fact, the National Agriculture Policy 2018 and the National Women Development Policy 2011 did not recognise women engaged in agricultural work as 鈥榝armers,鈥� creating obstacles for them in accessing agricultural loans and other government services, she added.
Presiding over the event, rights activist Khushi Kabir said that both men and women contributed to the management of natural resources, but women鈥檚 issues tended to remain absent in the broader development discourse.
鈥榃e have to continue speaking about women-related issues and movements to achieve women鈥檚 rights,鈥� she added.
ALRD executive director Shamsul Huda, journalist Sohrab Hassan, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Fauzia Moslem, Bangladesh Adibasi Nari Network coordinator Falguni Tripura and chief of the Women鈥檚 Reform Commission Shirin Parvin Haque also spoke at the event.
