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Mr.
Md. Abdul Hamid, Honourable Deputy Speaker, chaired the
seventh and final panel session of the Conference.
Opening
the session, Mr. Ziaur Rahman made two observations.
The first observation, on the paper of Mrs. Panna
Kaiser, was that that the description of the lady MPs as
“thirty sets of jewels” was not applicable to the
BNP government but probably to the previous government.
His second observation was on Barrister Rabia
Bhuiyan’s paper, referring to where she had said that
“the provision for reserved seats in the Parliament
for women has been perhaps the best possible means to
encourage women to take on responsibilities and actively
participate to build the nation.” Mr. Rahman argued
that it was a historical truth that throughout the
world, and not particularly in Bangladesh, women had
shown little interest in politics. Even in the last
session of the British Parliament, where democracy has
been practiced for the last six hundred years and where
in the last general election the participation of women
was the highest in their history, only about 20% of the
Members were women. He commented that perhaps the
Bangladesh Parliament can strive towards gender balance
but the fact was that this is how the world is today. He
also mentioned that since Independence, a total of about
200 women had been involved in politics, through the
reserved seats. He asked the question as to why these
women were not active in politics any more and were not
participating in regular elections. He felt that having
been selected in the 30 reserved seats and not having to
go through the battle of an election gave them the
benefit of enjoying all the perks of a Parliamentarian
without really being a people’s representative.
He said that in all the years he was in the
Parliament he has been openly against this system as
this was not only insulting to women but self defeating
also and he proposed that this “protection of sorts”
should be withdrawn.
Mr.
Ziaur Rahman continued by expressing his disagreement
with Mrs. Bhuiyan’s proposal for 100 seats reserved
for women, saying that this was a form of reverse
discrimination as, if a very competent male politician
fell within this belt of one hundred areas, he was
debarred from contesting. He also disagreed with her
recommendation of compelling political parties to field
100 women describing this as an impossibility because
political parties are an association of like-minded
individuals and they have a right to function on their
own subject to the laws of the land. This is a violation
of their fundamental rights.
However, he suggested that, as has been done in
the Upazilla system, women may be encouraged.
He also commented that it was a fine idea to have
women chairmen of committees and an excellent idea for
the Speakership and the Deputy Speakership to be
alternated between the two sexes and between the two
main parties, as has been embodied in the Constitution
in Sri Lanka and other countries of the region, to avoid
the acrimonious arguments that we see in our Parliament.
He requested Mrs Bhuiyan to consider whether her
proposal were feasible and whether political parties can
be forced to nominate women from a certain number of
seats.
Mrs.
Chitra Bhattacharya thanked the two presenters for their
well thought out papers. She said that Barrister Rabia
Bhuiyan had given instances of the lack of women’s
participation in public offices. While she agreed in
principle to increasing women’s participation in
public life and indeed in all walks of like, she felt
that this should be done on the basis of merit.
She however questioned whether enough competent
women at this point in our society’s development could
be found to fill 100 seats of the Parliament. She also
mentioned that she believed that they should come on the
basis of election and not be selected. Mrs. Bhattacharya
questioned how many Bills regarding women’s issues had
so far been placed in the Committee for Women’s
Affairs. She
finally agreed with Mrs. Bhuiyan that there definitely
were several women members who had the competence to
become chairpersons.
Mr.
Aktharuzzeman congratulated Barrister Rabia Bhuiyan and
Prof. Panna Kaiser for presenting two excellent papers,
which had been very well thought out.
He however, wanted to point out that, in
today’s world, Parliaments had become very vulnerable,
giving the example of the recent fall of the BJP
government in India because of one seat. He felt that
the 30 reserved seats in our Parliament gave undue
powers to the government and this may not be acceptable
to the opposition in the future. He pointed out that
this most important issue had not been mentioned in
Barrister Bhuiyan’s paper.
He wanted this to be considered carefully and
soon because there was a possibility that reserved seats
for women would not be there in the 8th
Parliament.
Mrs.
Tohura Ali thanked Barrister Rabia Bhuiyan for her paper
and Mrs. Mahmuda Shawgat for reading out Prof. Panna
Kaiser’s paper. She wanted to remind the audience that
half of the population were women and that this half of
the population had given the maximum sacrifices and
played an active and glorious role during the liberation
war. She further stated that the sacrifices the women
had made were in no way less than the men therefore
naturally women in this country had rights which should
not be undermined.
She made special mention of the recent convention
of the elected women members of the Union Parishads
which had amply demonstrated that women in Bangladesh
were conscious of their rights and were ready and
willing to play an equal role in society. She mentioned
that not only should women be the chairpersons in the
Committee for Women’s Affairs but also in other
committees like Social Welfare, Population, Education
and Health. Mrs. Tohura Ali ended her comments by
demanding that women be given special privileges to
contest the elections directly and that the male Members
of Parliament should help instead of hindering the
process.
Mr.
Abdul Matin Khasru, Minister for Law and Parliamentary
Affairs, began by saying that he did not consider this
as merely a women’s issue but as a national issue and
that our future would depend on the way the issue is
assessed now. He
also referred to Mr. Aktheruzzaman’s apprehension
about the possibility of there being no representation
of women in the next Parliament. He said be had already
prepared a Bill for extending the Provision of the 30
seats for 10 more years but this could not be done by
Awami League alone because it would require a two-third
majority. He therefore was concerned, as Mr.
Akhtaruzzaman had pointed out, that there may not be
women members in the next Parliament.
On
behalf of the Parliament Secretariat, Mr. Khasru
continued by expressing his gratitude to all whom had
participated in this seminar as the issues which have
been dealt with would hopefully yield some results in
formulating our future policies.
He particularly requested Barrister Rabia Bhuiyan
to take the lead role in forming a consensus in the
House for better representation of women. He also
suggested the forming of a Women’s Parliamentarian
Association which could speak as a body on this issue
and act as a pressure group to both the House and the
Opposition. However,
he requested that they be practical to the realities,
giving the example that if Barrister Bhuiyan contested
the election today against Mr. Sadek Hossain Khoka she
would be defeated. He suggested the lady MPs to put
pressure on the major political parties to nominate only
women candidates from at least 50 seats so that, even if
it was not an equal representation, at least a
reasonable representation of women would be there.
Mr.
Khasru mentioned that he had personally requested a
woman Member of the House to be a Supreme Court Judge
and she had declined. He also mentioned that he had seen
a woman Member presiding over the Speaker’s Chair with
a competence that had earned the respect of all.
He commented that, along with Mr. Ziaur Rahman
Khan, he had been very impressed by the Minister of
Justice who was a lady and placed her points and
arguments with much charm and dignity. He also spoke
about his views on the committees. According to the
scheme laid down by our constitution, he stressed that
Parliament was not there to govern. Part IV of the
Constitution lays down that the executive, formed out of
the Members of Parliament, has a distinct role, the
legislature another role and the Judiciary its own role.
The executive’s role is to govern while the
Parliament’s role was to oversee, not to govern.
Finally,
Mr. Khasru said he was grateful for all the participants
in this discussion and it was a good sign that all
parties had participated in the discussion. He commented
that, while there are many things we can criticize, this
was not the platform for making accusations at each
other. He
wanted to remind Barrister Bhuiyan and also the chairman
of the session that this is the appropriate time to
address this issue or else there may no longer be women
members in the Parliament. He said that he was not sure
whether he would be able to compete in the next election
because he did not have money like some other Members.
He also questioned whether candidates like Mrs. Chitra
Bhattacharya could go and campaign in her constituency
or spend the amounts of money that are now required.
Dr.
S. A. Akbar wanted to inform the House that the
activities of the Women Affairs Ministry were interwoven
with some other Ministries and that the problems of
women were not only dealt with by the Women’s Affairs
Ministry but by some other Ministries as well.
The government had therefore set up a task force
with representation from the concerned Ministries and
which was chaired by the Minister for Women’s Affairs
that would facilitate the empowerment of women in the
society. He stated that it was not true that gender
issues were not discussed in the Committee for Women’s
Affairs and informed the participants that a very large
project had been taken up by the Ministry on gender
issues to reduce gender inequalities in the society.
The present government’s avowed objective was
to make sure that women received their due share in the
society. He
stressed that the most important issue that needed to be
tackled at the moment was the time limit for the
reserved seats. His
own perception was that this could be 30 or slightly
more but if they were made to contest directly against
men, at this point in our society's development, most
would be defeated. He voiced the opinion that he would
like to see both the House and Opposition work together
on an equitable solution to the gender issue and
suggested that Barrister Rabia Bhuiyan should take the
lead in this.
Mr.
Qazi Shamsur Rahman said that some very important points
were made in the two papers and that he would like to
give his reaction to these points. He began by stating
that there have been many examples of women's
capabilities in different areas, especially in the
political arena of the sub-continent. He recalled,
however, Napoleon’s famous quotation that “if you
can give me a good mother, I can give you a good
nation”, stating that that those who are running the
affairs of the many countries of the world have been
basically taught by their mothers. He concluded from
this that it can be seen, even going back in history,
that a woman’s supreme identity was as a mother to
create the future leaders. He said he would be happy to
see women contest from all the 300 seats and emerge as
the winners. They should contest the elections together
with the male members and come out victorious.
He commented finally that we should not do
something emotionally but look at the history of the
last 500 years and then take a decision.
Mr.
Ashiqur Rahman backed Mrs. Panna Kaiser's contention
that it was up to the women to take their future in
their own hands. He did not however, agree with the
aggressive way in which Mrs. Bhuiyan wanted everything
to be given to her on a platter. He also explained the
historical reasons why women's participation in politics
was so negligible and stated that fortunately, in
today's world physical power and prowess did not figure
as prominently in the conduct of statecraft and it was
therefore natural that women should and would be playing
a larger role. For this reason we find today that in
different fields, women’s achievements are much more
than the achievements of men. He concluded by saying
that if the opportunities were provided for women to go
ahead in society, they would naturally succeed better
than the men.
Mr.
Biren Sikdar thanked Mr. Shamsur Rahman for dispelling
the popularly held belief that his party (Jamat-e-Islam)
was against women's leadership. Regarding the 30 seats,
he requested the House to consider that each of the 64
upazillas would put forward one women's representative.
Mr.
Hafiz Mozumdar, MP observed that women were in
leadership roles throughout the subcontinent and Sri
Lanka and Myanmar and yet they were clamouring for
greater participation.
He also observed that all the papers that were
presented suffered from being slanted along narrow party
lines.
Barrister
Rabia Bhuiyan, responding to Mr. Ziaur Rahman's
question, replied that women Members were no longer
willing to remain there as jewels in the Parliament.
For men there are two considerations, power and
money. Women
do not have either of these commodities and, for this
reason, they need the extra protection.
However, she also stated that the Constitution
had a provision that backward sections of society may be
given special privileges so as to bring them at par with
the rest of the society, and women in this country could
surely claim as being unequal when their rights in
inheritance, marriage, divorce and succession rights
were considered. She
also stated that given equal financial and muscle power
in a fair election, women would give more than equal
results. At this point, Mr. Akhteruzzaman intervened
saying that they should be realistic and unnatural
demands will unnecessarily create chaos and nothing will
be achieved. He
stated that no one will give women a walkover and that
they should be happy with 30 seats for the next ten
years.
Referring
to Mr. Biren Sikdar's proposal of 64 seats, Barrister
Rabia Bhuiyan continued by saying that she welcomed the
proposal, particularly as it would mean that women
Parliamentarians would not be a floating commodity but
anchored to a constituency.
She added that women would not then be used as
mere ornaments to strengthen the party in power.
At this point, Mr. Abdul Matin Khasru objected to
the reference as jewelry and argued that they were not
being used as such.
When Barrister Bhuiyan said that she expected the
Hon. Minister to take the lead, Mr. Khasru replied that
he had taken the lead and asked Barrister Bhuiyan to
form a Women’s Parliamentarians Association and she
had not seen the Leader of the House till today on that
matter. He added that she was only confining herself to
making speeches on paper and not taking any affirmative
steps. Barrister
Bhuiyan replied that she was happy that she had been
successful in arousing his agitation to which the Hon.
Minister replied that this would not work within the
confines of this room. Society had to be sensitized
about it. He
stressed that this was not a demand of women only as
equal representation was necessary in the interest of
the whole nation and that the women protagonists in this
room had not been aggressive enough in their actions to
place their case convincingly.
He said that noone referred to them as jewels and
the government wanted their participation. Barrister
Bhuiyan replied that the term jewelry was used as a
symbolic term to which Mr. Khasru commented that, at a
time when the end of this century was drawing near,
women members should mean what they were saying and
spend less time in making speeches.
Mr.
Akhteruzzaman intervened proposing that the total number
of seats should be increased to 400 and 100 of them
should be picked up at random by the Election
Commissioner for women.
Concluding, Barrister Rabia Bhuiyan said that she
was happy that her motion had created a lot of heat and
energy within the members and that this had been her
intention. She asked that this energy should not be
allowed to fizzle out but remain a positive creation.
The Chairman thanked the presenters of the papers and
the various discussants for their lively, and at times,
humorous discourses and adjourned the meeting.
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