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TO BE WOMEN IN BANGLADESH

What Bangladesh is among the poorest countries to the world, it is knew. From years Ngo and international institutions fight against the extreme poverty of the country. More recent instead it is strive by local organizations as the Bnwla (national association of the avvocates), to affirm the respect of the rights of the women.
In 2002 three hundred women has been attacked and tortured.

Bangladesh is a predominantly muslim country where the traditions are often radicalized. A woman cannot refuse the "avances" of a man without this gesture is interpreted as an insult to the family of the man. A woman has to have a suitable dowry for the marriage even if nevertheless she can get married equally promising to settle the "debt" subsequently. If these rules are not observed, the men can use against the women terrible tools of retaliation as the acid.
In 2002 well 485 women are been disfigured by acid of battery. The pain tried by these women is indescribable whether to comment the images that document this type of aggression.

The fact that the Prime Minister of Bangladesh is a woman and that international organizations try to eradicate this culture, it doesn't seem to produce encouraging results.
Despite to attack women, to torture her with acid, is considered illegal, the aggressors are rarely reported. Also in the case of sentences, the reimbursement never overcomes the value of a cow. There is also to consider that according to Trasparency International, Bangladesh results to be to the fourth place in the world in the unusual classification of the most corrupt countries.
A woman that has been slashed with the acid is automatically excluded by the society. She will never succeed to get married, neither to have children and in many cases the same family repudiates the daughter because she becomes an economic weight.
To face these situations of emergency, Ngo as Coopi, has run over important resources for the construction of a center of facial plasticses. The first footstep is to insert again the women victims of aggressions in the society.
The initiative of Coopi, that has sent in Bangladesh psychologists, nurses and surgeons, has allowed to intervene on over one hundred cases. The activity of cooperation has also concerned on the formation of the local physicians to face this type of emergencies.
Projects like that of Coopi are temporaly solutions , but what can be done for eliminating the problem to the root?
Undoubtedly the poverty is a remarkable factor. I have already remembered that the principal motive for the aggressions with acid is the missed payment of the dowry from the woman. Bangladesh has 140 million inhabitants of which 70 that they live in the most absolute poverty. For a woman marriage represented the only oppurunity for the future. Encouraging results to fight the poverty, originate from the programs of microcredit. Muhammad Yunus, economist born in Bangladesh, he has been the founder of the Grameen Bank a type of bank that operates in different way in comparison to the normal banks,
The idea of Yunus to fight the poverty in its country, is founded on to give trust to whom doesn't have anything. The normal banks before granting a credit do an analysis of solvency of the client. Yunus instead with the Grameen Bank has mainly sustained small entrepreneurial projects brought before really from women that they could not furnish any guarantee. Some women needed to acquire materials or small utensils to be able to begin an own activity, for instance of craftsmanship. The Grameen Bank has a preference to finance projects in which women partecipate because more reliable and more responsible than men. From investigations results that the women use the first earningses in the house, for the family, instead the men are less able to administer the resources because more individualists.
The initiative of Yunus has also been innovative from the social point of view because for of the women to get credit, in a sexist society strongly as Bangladesh, it is practically impossible. Anyway microcredit has undoubtedly brought advantages to level microeconomic but not to macroeconomic level. In conclusion isolated even though positive projects they remain. To every way it is important to valorize the role of the woman in the society of Bangladesh aiming at the education. The affiliate to the university of Dhaka are for the 76% men and 24% women.
Obviously to know how to read and to write won't change the destiny of a lot of women however it is important to start a trial coordinated of social development.
The first footstep is a reality economic development that licks up every layer of the society. And' is esteemed from the World Bank that the corruption erodes every year three points percentages of the Gnp.
Acting on the economic development, on the suitable education and liberty of information, it would be possible to start a slow walk to affirm a different role of the woman in Bangladesh.
It stays to see how much wanted is from the same women a similar transformation considering that in the parliament, the female component wants the Islamic law.

Federico Bastiani