by Marzana Mahnaz
It is time to reconsider what kind of political positions are actually taking shape in our public sphere regarding violence against women, the definition of rape, and women’s empowerment. Recent political statements, alliance-building, and the reality of women’s representation together make it increasingly clear that there remains a deep gap between declared commitments to women’s empowerment and actual political practice. This gap is not merely a matter of political strategy. It is also a question of political ideology, sincerity, and democratic commitment.
Bangladesh has remained a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) since 1984. Under this international framework, forced sexual relations without consent are considered rape, regardless of the nature of the relationship between the two parties. In that sense, recognizing forced sex within marriage as rape is also consistent with international human rights standards. The report of the Women’s Reform Commission in Bangladesh likewise recommended bringing marital rape within the scope of criminal law. Yet in the face of strong opposition from Hefazat-e-Islam and other Islamist political actors, that proposal effectively remained confined to the reform report itself.
This is where the question of political positioning becomes especially important. Ahead of the 13th parliamentary election, the current opposition leader and party Ameer publicly offered a definition of rape that completely denied the very idea of marital rape. Not only that, he and his party also rejected the position taken by the Women’s Reform Commission. Around the same time, other leaders from the same party made degrading remarks about working women and female students. These comments stood in direct conflict with the idea of women’s empowerment. Later, in an interview with Al Jazeera, the party’s Ameer used a religious explanation to argue that women can never reach the highest positions of leadership. These remarks were not isolated. Rather, they made even clearer the party’s long-standing position on women’s political leadership, equal rights, and autonomy.
In this context, the position of the National Citizens’ Party (NCP) has become especially significant. As a party that emerged in the aftermath of the student-led uprising, NCP sought to present itself as an alternative to Bangladesh’s long-standing two-party politics and as a centrist political force. But when electoral alliances and seat-sharing arrangements drew the party into a coalition led by Jamaat-e-Islami, it naturally raised questions about the credibility of that centrist claim. Particularly when Jamaat’s position on women’s rights and women’s leadership is so explicitly conservative, can remaining in such an alliance be explained as merely strategic, or does it also reflect a deeper ideological comfort?
The importance of this question grows further when it becomes clear that some women leaders within NCP themselves chose to step away in protest. The resignations of several women leaders, including Tasnim Zara and Tajnuba Jabin, brought that discomfort into the open. For a party that claims to represent a new political current and to carry the political legacy of an anti-discrimination uprising, such departures are not simply organizational incidents. Rather, they raise questions about the party’s ideological position itself.
Women’s participation in the July 2024 movement was visible, courageous, and inspiring. The image of a sister standing with her chest out in front of a prison van to stop her brother from being taken away by police, of a teacher becoming a shield to prevent a student from being unlawfully detained, or of the indomitable presence of Rokeya Hall students, all remain part of the political memory of that moment. Yet the continuity between women’s participation and leadership during the movement and their place in post-uprising politics has been strikingly weak. Instead, what we are seeing is that even when women are visible in struggle, they continue to remain marginalized in the distribution of power.
This contradiction is also evident in the current debate in parliament over the implementation of the July Charter. The opposition has walked out of parliament multiple times demanding its implementation, even warning that failure to implement the Charter could lead to another July. But some of the Charter’s provisions were meant to be fulfilled before the election itself, and on that count, almost all political parties, including the opposition, failed. According to the July Charter, every political party was required to nominate women candidates in at least 5 percent of the 300 parliamentary constituencies. In reality, however, only 78 of the total 1,981 candidates were women, roughly 3.93 percent. Among party-nominated female candidates, the BNP nominated 10 women. The largest number of female candidates ran as independents. Jamaat-e-Islami, on the other hand, did not nominate a single woman candidate, even though it has an active women’s wing. NCP nominated only three women candidates.
Jasmine Tuli, a member of the Election Reform Commission and a former additional secretary of the Election Commission, has rightly observed that Bangladesh’s electoral system remains deeply patriarchal. Most women politicians or women members of parliament rise through family influence; the number of women who emerge through grassroots struggle, student movements, or sustained political work remains extremely small. The experience of the July movement could have changed that reality. But in practice, what we see is that while women’s presence in the movement was highly visible, their position within structures of power has not been secured to the same degree.
In Bangladesh, women are often seen as the face of protest, but not as equal stakeholders in power. The new political reality that emerged after July created an opportunity to break with that old tendency. But there is still reason to doubt how far that opportunity is being used. If NCP truly wants to establish itself as an alternative, centrist, and new political force, then its position on women’s empowerment must become clearer, more principled, and more consistent. Because this is no longer only a question of electoral seat-sharing. It is also a question of political ideals.
Marzana Mahnaz is a Research Associate at the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS). She is a governance researcher with over two years of experience analyzing legal and policy reforms in Bangladesh. Her work has focused on draconian laws such as the Digital Security Act 2018 and its impact on press freedom, while actively engaging with stakeholders, academics, lawyers, civil society, and policymakers to shape reform recommendations.