Literature Review on Local Government

Tanjil Ahmed

Local government is an administrative body for a small geographical area such as a city, town, country or state. It will typically only have control over their specific geographical region and cannot pass or enforce laws that will affect a wider area. It can also elect officials, enact taxes and do many other things that a national government would do, just on a smaller scale (business Dictionary). According to the Local Government (Union Parishad) Ordinance of 1983, Union Parishad consists of a chair, nine members, and three women members. Candidates for open seats can be male or female but because of being highly patriarchal society, those who are elected from the open seats are mainly male. In local government Union parishads are the smallest rural administrative and local government unit in Bangladesh. Each Union parishad is made up of nine wards (Wikipedia). A “woman” is a mature female human being, as analogized to men, a grownup male, and a teenager, a female child. The term woman used to entitle biological sex differences, ethnic gender role divisions, or both (Wikimedia, 2005:1). The strengthening of women’s participation in all provinces of life as well as local government has become a major issue in the development discourse. Socio economic development cannot be fully achieved without the active participation of women at the decision making level in society. But there are many crucial problems behind their participation. Based on literature review there is a plenty of research on ‘Problems of power practice of women representative in Union Parishad in Bangladesh’.

FWCW, 1995 analyzed that, the overall development of a country depends upon the maximum deployment of her people, both men and women. In Bangladesh, women consist of nearly half of the total population. However, the status of women is much lower than that of men in every scope of life. Women are identified with domestic life while politic is viewed as a male-dominated public action that is typically male in nature. With the progression of time, the facts have now been recognized that without ensuring women development, the national development cannot be achieved and or not sustainable. Women’s equal participation in political life plays a pivotal role in the general process of the advancement of women. It is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy but can also be seen as a necessary condition for women’s interests to be taken into account. Without the active participation of women and the incorporation of women’s standpoint at all levels of decision-making, the goals of equality, development and peace cannot be achieved (FWCW, 1995).

Khan and Fardaus, 2006 contended in their studies that, Women participation in governing process through local government election and gender sensitive particular policies are prerequisite for achieving meaningful development in any developing country such as Bangladesh. This particular issue has been recognized as such in the context of policy reforms in both governmental and local government domain. Recent local government reform in Bangladesh has led to creation of quota for women in grassroots independent institutions (Khan and Fardaus, 2006).

Khan and Fardaus 2006 further contended that, In the context of local government, women’s concerns had risen irregularly and were emphasized in the government transformation agenda as evident in the last Local Government Reform of 1997 (Khan and Fardaus 2006). As a momentous effect, Local Government (UP) Amendment Act 1997 was broadcasted. It provides 3 directly elected women members in the Union Parishad from 3 reserved seats (Khan and Fardaus, 2006).

Local Government (Union Parishad) Second Amendment Act 1997 proclaimed that, Women’s role in decision-making is one of the most important questions for consideration in the movement for their empowerment. Keeping in mind, the importance of women’s participation in decision-making, like the other government in the world, the government of Bangladesh has initiated efforts to widen the scope of women for participation in the development process. Local Government (Union Parishad) Second Amendment Act 1997 of Bangladesh is a milestone towards ensuring women’s equal access and increased participation in political power structures. This amendment provided for direct elections to reserved seats for women in local level elections. As a strategy of affirmative action for providing the structural framework for women’s participation in political decision making and provided an opportunity to bring women to the center of local development and develop new grass-roots level leadership.

Local Government (Union Parishad) Second Amendment Act 1997 of Bangladesh promotes is perceived as a milestone towards ensuring women’s equal access and increased participation in political power structures. This amendment provided direct elections to reserved seats for women in local level elections. As a strategy of affirmative action for providing the structural framework for women’s participation in political decision making and provided an opportunity to bring women to the center of local development and develop new grass-roots level leadership. But the number of women in elective positions of chairperson and members in the Union Parishad was horribly low and practically infinitesimal even after three seats are reserved for women candidates as women elected from reserved seats are feeling lack of institutional support and they are often not be able to include themselves in mainstream activities and even their responsibilities are sometimes not clarified clearly. Even those who are elected as chair or general member are often neglected in times of decision-making only because of being woman.

The study of Ahmed, Shafi and Nabi, Bela, 2001 concentrated that, In Bangladesh, women constitute half of the population and bulk of them live under poverty line. Irrespective of class, religion, caste, color and creed women are left in a state of isolation exposing the society to disruption and collapse (Ahmed, Shafi and Nabi, Bela, 2001). Lack of women participation in power and decision-making is gravely liable for this state. Participation of women in the national as well as in local government is called for as an encounter.

Jahan & Momtaz, 1997 reasoned that, Women members in the Union Parishad (UP), the focal point of local government in the rural areas of Bangladesh, are for the first time elected directly in the reserved seats. This has opened an avenue for women to participate in power and decision making process with their own agenda at the grassroots. Though this participation is in some cases to some extent barred, it provides for maintaining the mosaic of interests in a pluralistic society resulting in social integration (Jahan & Momtaz, 1997).

Women participation in Local Government (UP): A study of rural Bangladesh embraces, Political participation in Bangladesh also requires massive financial involvement. In addition, because of this ‘money politics’ women are discouraged to make them involve in politics. Many women who decide to participate in elections are forced by prevailing political culture to spend huge amount of money. Women in Bangladesh are mainly economically dependent on their male family members. If they participate in elections with the financial help of those males, they have to return the favor by giving ‘preferential or special treatment’ (even in spite of that special treatment is wrong) if they win in that election. In Bangladesh, the existing patriarchal system reinforces women’s dependency on men and men have strong reservations regarding women in leadership and management positions.

The Independent newspaper asserted (14 February, 2019 11:18:59 am), In South Asia, women's participation in the political process has not been insignificant so far. Women are identified through their relationships with the dominant males- as mothers, wives sister and daughters. While women are underrepresented in positions of political power worldwide they have clearly had more success at gaining access to local level decision-making positions than to those at central government level. The reason for this has been attributed largely to the everyday realities of women’s lives. Also women candidates of Bangladesh face some challenges while participating in election. In Bangladesh, most of the religious values wanted to restrict women's rights and equality and intentionally deny women's political participation. Some people claims purdha restriction was an obstacle for campaigning in Union Parishad election in rural areas women are not used to being active and participating in the public sphere. Many villagers, both men and women assume that, it is difficult to accept a woman as candidate in election as this is not the traditional role of a woman. Non-cooperation from local elite is considered as a constraint for woman candidates. People opine that because of the reservation of seats, local elite considers woman candidates as emerging leaders in rural power structure in a sense a challenge to the local elite. Besides, some claims that people's attitude towards women was not always encouraging of their leadership. Accordingly, they are not always able to motivate their electorate, who could support them in strengthening their position. Therefore, it can be said that patriarchal outlook is a constraint for women to participate in election at local level. Election campaign requires social interactions and relationships with the people, which seem to be difficult and challenging for women. Moreover, in Bangladesh women candidates who participate in elections carried the burden of domestic duties. It is found that an overwhelming proportion of candidates are supposed to collect money from different sources to meet the electoral expenditure. Besides this, majority of women candidates have no self-income and they are economically dependent on their families. So they get financial support from various sources to meet their electoral expenses. It is also found similarities between the issues raised by the candidate. During participation in election, women candidates face some common challenges like lack of self-confidence and awareness, lack of previous election experience, patriarchal outlook, restrictions on free movement, campaigning at night, and inadequacy of finance (Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed).

The study of Women's Representation in the Union Parishad 2016 bring into being that, most of the female members had not been directly involved in politics before elections and most of them did not have a clear idea about what it would mean to be a public representative. Also, Women UP members preferred to contest for reserved seats because they would then not have to compete against men, thus reducing competition and reducing election expenses. Political parties and citizens also favor voting for women in reserved seats. On one hand women do not have either the economic resources necessary to contest the general seats or the "strength" to compete against male candidates. Further, the views of citizens and politicians are that if general voters had to choose between voting for women and men for a UP member seat, the male candidate would probably be given preference. It is also observed that many women who have been elected once do not seek reelection a second time whereas the hope was that they would in fact want to contest for general seats in the second round. Among the reasons for not contesting a second term, female members mentioned that they felt they had not been able to deliver on their commitments and promises made at the time of elections which is why their voters had lost faith in them (they had not been able to carry out development work or distribute safety net allocations as demanded by their constituency). Family level responsibilities and pressures were also reasons; especially if the family felt that the female member had not gained as much benefit as they had hoped for (either financially or otherwise). In a few cases, the reason was not having a good relationship with the UP Chair and feeling that they had no influence in the UP (Maheen Sultan, Bayazid Hasan, Sahida Islam Khondaker, Ahmed Asif Enam, Towhid Iqram Mahmood, Sohela Nazneen).

Literature Review on UDC

Tanjil Ahmed

Through strengthening and using e-governance and connectivity components, Bangladesh has commenced various ICT initiatives for improving and extending countrywide public service delivery. These initiatives aimed at reforming government service delivery processes through involving entrepreneurs as well as private sectors under the innovative idea of Union Digital Center (Hoque Safiul Md. Shah, Union Digital Center (Udc) And Reduction Of Digital Gap: An Analysis On Users’ Perception, 2016).

Union Digital Centers (UDCs) in Bangladesh are one-stop service delivery outlets, providing information and delivery of different public and private services. Established under the direct jurisdiction of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), with technical assistance from the United Nations Developed Programme (UNDP) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), its operation is being overseen by the Access to Information (A2I) program. UDCs are aiding rural citizens to deal with the circuitous bureaucratic process of service delivery (Bakshi Karim Rejaul, 2016).

Mahmood elucidates the necessity of UDC in his work. He articulated that, In order to supply information to the relegated and rural disadvantaged and to decrease the digital divide between urban and rural areas, a number of information and knowledge centers popularly known as Union Digital Center (UDC) have already been established in the rural areas of many developing countries. The first UDC for this function was established in the mid-1980s in Sweden to offer services, training and jobs to the local community through computers and modern telecommunications equipment (Mahmood, 2005.)Norizan, Zaharah and Rosseni demonstrate about ICT raining. They specify, training in ICT related skills, development strategies, staff roles, production of content, marketing, evaluation, human resource management are important components in ensuring the sustainability of the UDC (D. Rosseni, 2010). Zahurin (2009) illustrates about social sustainability. He argued that, for ensuring the sustainability of UDC, Social sustainability of the project after period of time needs to be addressed. There are a number of factors such as quality of services and delivery, appropriate staffing, and effective promotions of UDC which are crucial in achieving social sustainability of UDC (Zahurin, 2009 ).

Colle and Roman, 2001 elucidate that, sustaining service delivery relates to the continuation of flows of information that communities find useful and useable. But it also relates to sustaining the overall services of UDC in terms of adapting to evolving community needs, proactively seeking new sources of useful information and alerting the community to the value of information (R., 2001). Additionally Sarkar (2013) assumed that, as a one-stop delivery points, the UDC is placed with the potentials to eradicate all these problems since it is located in UP, a nearer place to them. It has the potential to reduce inaccessibility, cost, time and distance, remove problems of intermediaries, unresponsiveness, unaccountability and lack of transparency in the delivery provision of information or services (Sarker, 2013).

Moreover, Siddiquee and Faroqi (2013) contended that, in case of UDCs, to impart all information and services, however, there must be an effective back-end support to supply them with appropriate contents (Hanna, 2010; Bhatnagar, 2004) which is yet to be developed for UDCs. Along with this, the capability of it to connect the rural citizenry can be questioned for a number of other reasons like limitations in infrastructure, human resource and support from Local Administration and the UP. It is also challenging to involve disadvantaged people like women, poor, and illiterate, given the difficulty to make them aware, for leveraging the benefits (Siddiquee, 2013).

While these studies concentrated on the overall financial sustainability to reach a break-even point there are clearly lack of studies to provide any model to explain as what factors contribute to the sustained level of income of entrepreneurs of UDC. There is an urgent need to develop a model and test on financial viability as most externally funded UDC face challenges with the exit of donors (Kumar, 2005). Moreover, in Bangladesh no studies have previously focused any forms of sustainability concerns of the UDC. Hence, this study focuses on the financial viability of the UDC from identifying the factors evolved from the interplay of partners in the model that have influence on the inconsistency of entrepreneur’s income. Despite there are other forms of sustainability, this research paper only deals with the financial crisis of UDC. Appropriately ascertaining the factors, behind it will have implications for preventing drop-outs, and thus ensuring sustainability of the UDC.

Literature Review on Sexual Harassment of Women

Tanjil Ahmed

Sexual harassment is an unwanted behavior which is conducted by men to women or men to men or women to women or women to men. Both men and women can be endangered to sexual harassment, but women are much more likely to be affected by it due to the unequal gender relations prevalent in many societies. In Bangladesh, women are the main victim of sexual harassment. Overwhelming majority of women, who are going outside from their home every day for education, work or for other needs, are being sexually harassed by men every day. Hundreds of women are raped and sexually assaulted every year. Incidents of sexual harassment are increasing day by day (Razidur, 2017).

Further, Syed Saad Andaleeb, Simeen Mahmud, Fahmida Saadia Rahman studied on sexual harassment of women in public transport. They showed 35 per cent respondents using public transport faced sexual harassment from males belonging to the age group of 19-35 years. Around 59 per cent respondents faced such harassment from the males who are 26-40 years old. The forms of sexual harassment experienced by the respondents include deliberate touching of victim's body with chest and other parts of the body, pinching, standing too close to the victim and pushing, touching of hair of the victims, putting hand on their shoulder, touching private parts of the victims (Andaleeb Saad Syed, 2018). Ahmed Najmul Hussain also delineated the scenario of Sexual Harassment of Women. In his study, he illustrated that, sexual harassment on road and public transport. Students and teachers informed on the issues of road safety and sexual harassment risk on road and it is needed to take steps to raise people’s capacity of preventing such incidents' (Andaleeb Saad Syed, 2018). Another time F. Begum, R. N. Ali, M.A. Hossain, Sonia B. Shahid directed a study on Sexual harassment of women at working place. They argued that the main source of mental stress for female workers is sexual harassment at working environment. The occurrence of sexual harassment ranges from insults directed at a person’s gender, suggestive comments, or language, and demeaning remarks to unwelcome touching and grabbing and other physical assaults. These types of sexual harassment are not reported since female workers feel very shy to disclose any information on this subject. Moreover, unmarried workers were afraid of disclosing any information on sexual harassment since it decreases their marriage possibility. The survey showed that only 2 percent of female workers encountered with sexual harassment in the working place (F. Begum, 2010).

Moreover, Taqbir Huda conducted a survey on Law of Sexual Harassment. In his study he argued that in 2018 BNWLA along with eight other organizations jointly submitted a draft law titled Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2018 to the law ministry, which formalizes the 2009 guidelines and imposes a statutory obligation on all organizations to have Sexual Harassment Complaint Committees. This sexual harassment law has been magnified in the aftermath of Nusrat Jahan Rafi’s heinous murder, since many argued that it is precisely the lack of a Sexual Harassment Complaint Committee in the Sonargaon Madrasa (owing to absence of legislation mandating it) that impeded Nusrat’s ability to seek recourse against the accused principal which in turn prolonged her ordeal (Taqbir, 2019). Rana Dutta exhibit a study under the title of “Sexual Harassment: Enough is enough”. In his study, he articulated the government role, reforming existing laws, anti-harassment policy with a view to preventing sexual harassment of women from Bangladesh. Regarding his study, he further explained the role of NGOs in Bangladesh to protect the women and child from harassment and ensure the freedom of movement of them (Rana, 2017).

While these studies focused on the overall Sexual Harassment in Bangladesh, there are clearly lack of studies to identify the functional reasons and remedies of Sexual Harassment of Women in Bangladesh. There is an urgent need to develop a model applied reasons and remedies of Sexual Harassment of Women in Bangladesh. Moreover, in Bangladesh no studies have previously focused on pragmatic reasons and remedies of Sexual Harassment of Women in Bangladesh. Hence, this study focuses on ascertain the pragmatic reasons and remedies of Sexual Harassment of Women in Bangladesh. Despite there are other causes of harassment, this research paper only deals with practical causes of sexual harassment of women in Bangladesh and the process of remedies. The researcher contemplate that, this study will minimize the gap between the theoretical and practical remedies of sexual harassment of women in Bangladesh.