DHAKA — Bangladeshi women marched through the streets of the capital carrying flaming torches on February 9, demanding justice and meaningful political representation ahead of the February 12 elections.
Despite playing a leading role in the 2024 uprising that cleared the path for the upcoming vote, women are set to remain largely excluded from Bangladesh’s political landscape. Female candidates account for fewer than four percent of those contesting the election, while 30 political parties have fielded all-male slates.
“Whatever regime is in place, repression of women appears in many different forms,” said Priya Ahsan Chowdhury, 31, a Supreme Court lawyer who joined around 100 women chanting slogans and singing outside Parliament. “In some areas, we haven’t seen any representation of women at all — only men. That is what pushed us to come out and raise our voices.”
The march, which began at midnight on March 8 and continued into the early hours of Monday, took place amid rising inflammatory rhetoric targeting women at religious and political rallies, as well as growing efforts to push them out of public life.
The February 12 polls will be the first since the overthrow of the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina.
“The dream of the mass uprising was to build a country based on justice and equality, yet women are gradually being erased from the public sphere,” said protester Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, 38, head of the Tech Global Institute think tank. “Now, as we once again imagine building a new Bangladesh, political parties where women once played key roles have largely sidelined them in the electoral race.”
Bangladesh has historically been led by influential women, including Sheikh Hasina and her longtime rival, the late three-time prime minister Khaleda Zia.
However, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has not fielded any women candidates, with some of its members arguing that society is not ready for women in politics.
