In search of an Opposition in Bangladesh election

 

SALEEM SAMAD

Nosy political scientist, political analyst and political observers have been scratching their heads to understand, where is the opposition in the upcoming national election scheduled to be held on January 7, 2024.

Which party will sit on the opposition bench in the magnificent iconic Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) building?

It should not sound strange that in an election, a party that gets a majority in an election forms a government, while the runners-up (second majority) takes a seat on the opposition bench in the parliament. That’s a norm in political science.

A day before, the European Union (EU) was equally curious to know where the opposition is.

The EU asked the governing Awami League general secretary, Obaidul Quader, to know who would be the opposition party in the 12th national parliament.

Quader, also Road Transport and Bridges Minister said ‘The results of the polls will tell who will be the opposition.’ Indeed, a simple answer to a complex question.

In Bangladesh, the governing party Awami League has ensured that the principal opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is eliminated and thousands of the key leaders, members and supporters are behind bars.

The trumped-up cases are mostly terrorism, vandalism and destruction of government properties.

The Awami League has sacrificed six constituencies for its alliance partners and 26 for the Jatiya Party in the national election, said the ruling party’s Office Secretary Biplob Barua that their party leaders have withdrawn their candidacies from these 32 seats. Thus the party will contest for 263 constituencies.

On the other hand, the Jatiya Party Secretary General Mujibul Haque Chunnu announced that the party will contest for 287 constituencies, out of 300.

With the Jatiya Party joining, the pre-election camp gets bigger, writes Jahidul Islam in the Business Standard.

If the Awami League shares seats with the Jatiya Party the latter will become a “loyal opposition” that will be subservient to the governing party and would hardly oppose not debate any bill that goes against the freedom and rights of the people.

The ‘loyal opposition’ will need not walk out from the session nor debate in the parliament, other than asking for political favour for the party and their members only.

Meanwhile, upbeat Awami League lawmaker Prof Mohammad A. Arafat and Chairman of Suchinta Foundation who is active on Twitter (X) writes: 30 former parliamentarians, including five advisors to the (opposition) BNP Chairperson and 15 members of the BNP Central Committee, are participating in the election. Apart from the central leaders, 87 leaders of the BNP, including the president, vice president, general secretary of the district, and upazila (sub-district) level, are contesting the election.

Arafat, who is an active cyber warrior against the opposition (BNP) and critic of the Awami League regime troll army, seems to justify the absence of BNP and others in the poll and remarked that “They look set to mount a tough challenge in many seats. In addition, the Jatiya Party and its 14-party partners will also face stiff competition in many seats. Trinamool BNP and BNM (Bangladesh Nationalist Movement) have also fielded strong candidates in many seats.

First published in the Northeast News, Guwahati, India, 27 December 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Hawara Rampage Has A Hallmark Of Sabra And Shatila Massacres

SALEEM SAMAD

The night of the riots in Hawara by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank last week has a trail of destruction sown by Israelis in the village by masked men to avenge the murder of the Jewish brothers by unidentified radicalised Palestinians – who are on the run after the elite Israel police are on a countrywide manhunt.

Hundreds of Jewish settlers descended on the northern West Bank town, killing 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash and wounding 98 other Palestinians after two Israeli brothers were gunned down by a Palestinian affiliated with the Nablus-based Lion’s Den militant group on 26 February.

The day after on 27 February, hundreds of settlers set fire to homes and cars and threw stones, it was obvious to anyone on the road leading into the West Bank Palestinian town that the rioters were still in control, the Haaretz newspaper describes the situation.

Scores of young Jewish vigilantes, many of them masked, gathered there in the morning checking vehicles in search of Palestinians. The Israeli soldiers kept a distance, but the vigilante was doing as they pleased, laments an Israeli newspaper.

The reports of a large Israeli army presence in the town existed only on paper. Many rebuked the armed forces for their incompetence.

Top Israel General Yehuda Fuchs, said the settler extremists are sowing terror. The vigilante settlers who rampaged through a Palestinian town in the West Bank had carried out a “pogrom” that caught the military off-guard, he remarked.

The general who is Head of the IDF (Israel Defence Force) Central Command and oversees the West Bank told Hebrew-language media that he was worried about clashes between soldiers and settlers and accused the Jewish extremists of “spreading terror.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank didn’t dare wander around their village, which looked like a ghost town. The shops were shuttered, the streets strewn with rocks, and the smell of smoke was still in the air.

The army accused the rioters while civil society and human rights organisations blame intelligence failure.

On the other hand, Lt. Gen. Herzl Halevi, Israel’s army chief denounces the attack by hundreds of Jewish settlers and laments that the army should have prevented the rampage by Jewish settlers in Hawara.

Israel’s army chief remarked that Israelis should halt the “internecine struggle” that has plagued the country since Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government took over two months ago.

Many attribute the chaos in Hawara as a hallmark of the massacre nearly forty years ago at Sabra and Shatila Palestine refugee camps by Israeli-backed right-wing Phalange militia killed between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians between September 16 and 18, 1982.

However, the IDF commanders immediately scoffed off the allegation of Israel’s involvement in the bloody atrocities in the two refugee camps in Lebanon.

Shatila camp southwest of Lebanon’s capital city Beirut housed refugees who were victims of the 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, fleeing the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias as Israel was formed.

The Hawara riot has invited global condemnation of Israel’s handling of the situation. Hady Amr, the U.S. special representative for Palestinian affairs, visited the scene of occurrence and condemned “the unacceptable wide-scale, indiscriminate violence by settlers” and wants “to see full accountability and legal prosecution of those responsible for these heinous attacks and compensation for those who lost property or were otherwise affected,” echoing calls by State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

European Union calls for protection of civilians, de-escalation amid rising West Bank violence and urges all perpetrators must be brought to justice.

The European Union in a statement expressed its concern over recent deadly violence in the West Bank, calling for the protection of civilians and immediate de-escalator steps.

The EU statement also commended Jordan, Egypt, and the US for convening Sunday’s summit in Aqaba, Jordan which brought Israeli and Palestine Authority officials together in an attempt to tamp down on the violence ahead of the month of Ramadan.

The Israel media claims several ministers are demanding more aggressive actions, despite the looming holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which in recent years has become a time of heightened tensions and violence.

Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have been high for the past year, with the IDF conducting near-nightly raids in the West Bank amid a series of deadly Palestinian terror attacks, writes Times of Israel.

First appeared in the The News Times, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 3 March 2023

Saleem Samad, is an award-winning independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

UN Refugee Agency urges fair deal for Rohingyas in Bangladesh

SALEEM SAMAD

United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) seeks equal treatment for all Rohingyas in Bangladesh and help to provide basic aids to new arrivals.

Apparently the appeal was made amidst confusion created after fresh influx of refugees who fled violence in Myanmar are dubbed 'undocumented' and miss out on vital aid, while those arrived in Bangladesh are considered 'refugees'.

The new influx has highlighted the urgent need to verify the number and location of the new arrivals. Without this information, vulnerable refugees risk falling through the cracks while others could be receiving duplication of assistance, says a top UNHCR officials in Bangladesh.

The influx of refugees in the early 1990s, lives in two government-run camps serviced by UNHCR, and its partners the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP) in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, bordering troubled Rakhine State.

The 33,000 registered refugees in Kutupalong and Nayapara camps in Ukhia have access to basic services including food assistance, healthcare and education for children, but the registered refugees do not have any legal status in Bangladesh.

More than 70,000 Rohingya are believed to flee during a security operation between October 2016 and February 2017. The security operation by Myanmar Army has recently been postponed after international outcry, including the United Nations, European Union, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Bangladesh government has announced it will conduct a census of undocumented Rohingya living outside the two camps to include the new arrivals.

"We are advocating for a joint verification of the new arrivals with our partners as soon as possible," said Shinji Kubo, UNHCR's Representative in Bangladesh. "This exercise will help the government and humanitarian agencies to better target assistance to those who need it the most, be they new arrivals, refugees who came earlier or locals who host them."

A third category consists of an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 'undocumented' Rohingya who arrived in Bangladesh between the two influxes. They live in makeshift sites and local villages, and until recently had no access to humanitarian aid.

"The current situation is not sustainable," said  Shinji Kubo. "Regardless of when they came and where they live, these people have the same needs and deserve equal access to protection and assistance," he told UNHCR press.

Several thousand new arrivals are presently accommodated in the two official camps, pressuring on the capacity of existing refugees and the infrastructure. Many more new arrivals are living in existing makeshift sites or new ones that have sprouted spontaneously.

"In the long run, we hope that all Rohingyas in Bangladesh can be documented to ensure full respect for their rights," said UNHCR's Kubo. "Knowing the profile of this population will also help us to identify longer-term solutions for them."

Article first published in The Asian Age, March 22, 2017

Saleem Samad, is an Ashoka Fellow (USA), an award winning investigative journalist and is Special Correspondent for The Asian Age

Obama’s blunder with Bangladesh to suspend trade benefits

Angry clothing factory workers street protests for better pay and safe workplace

KEVIN RAFFERTY, special to the Japan Times

President Barack Obama recently announced that he was suspending Bangladesh’s trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) because the country failed to give its workers proper rights.

Not for the first time, I have to wonder at the clumsiness and the lack of sensible, let alone sensitive, policies by the administration of President Barack Obama.

No doubt he was inspired by horror and outrage after the deaths of almost 1,500 workers in a series of criminal accidents in Bangladesh’s factories making garments for the biggest multinational companies in the world such as Wal-Mart, Primark, H&M, Marks and Spencer, Topshop.

Bangladesh factories suffered from several fires where workers could not get out because the exits were blocked. One fire last year killed 113 people. But the truly murderous culmination came in April when an eight-story factory, whose owners had ignored planning and construction regulations, suddenly collapsed like the proverbial pack of cards.

Police had warned about cracks, but the factory owners told worried workers that if they did not go to work they would lose their jobs: 1,129 of them lost their lives, and others survived only after crushed limbs were amputated. It was the world’s biggest factory disaster.

The punishment that Obama has imposed is like an old-fashioned sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut — but the sledgehammer has missed its target. That’s a good thing because if Obama had succeeded in hurting Bangladesh, those he would have hurt most would have been the women who work sometimes in unsafe conditions of semi-slavery to produce garments for the world.

As Kimberley Elliott of the Center for Global Development noted, the U.S. action is in most ways a symbolic measure because GSP does not cover clothing, which accounts for 90 percent of Bangladesh’s exports to the United States.

The punishment affects about 1 percent of exports, or a trifling $35 million in goods, so it seems a clumsy way of making a point. It may be that Obama understood that what he was doing would have very little impact on the economy but nevertheless wanted to send a warning shot. But the way he did it smacks of bullying.

It also sends dangerous messages in different directions. It might encourage the European Union to follow suit, which would threaten more than $12 billion worth of Bangladesh goods. Washington’s action could also encourage big retailers to rethink and try to pull out of Bangladesh because Obama has withdrawn a significant seal of approval from the country.

Already one chief executive of an American company that designs and distributes high-end apparel from Bangladesh told the New York Times, “Right now, the name of Bangladesh just gives a bad rep (reputation) to a company.” A number of international companies are keen to explore other opportunities away from disgraced Bangladesh.

I have to declare an interest. I watched the creation of Bangladesh and its bloody Caesarian birth out of Pakistan with India as midwife. Even in the heady days of independence, the economic plight of Bangladesh seemed desperate, with few exports but heavy dependence on imports for all sort of basic goods, from food to energy and clothing.

Worse still, the life expectancy and literacy rates of the infant country were among the lowest in the world. The land was crisscrossed by rivers curling round each other like snakes in an orgy.

The main means of transport were country boats with home made patched up sails that had to be pulled if there was no wind, or slow buses or slower trains, all of which were usually so crowded that there was no room to stand, even on the roof.

What was the hope for this country, except for the heartwarming energy and enthusiasm of the people?

To cut a long story short, Bangladesh, after a painful start, has begun to make important steps forward, thanks largely to the women in the textile factories. They are the backbone of the $20 billion in clothing exports that have helped Bangladesh to climb up the world economic tables. Per capita income, thanks to annual growth of 6 to 7 percent, is $1,700, and Bangladesh now occupies 44th place in the global economic league tables.

It has gained a place in Goldman Sachs’ N-11 group of countries, meaning the Next Eleven, which have the potential after the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to become the big movers and shakers of the world economy in this century. The list is an odd one, with some doubtful names on it, but it puts Bangladesh in the august company of Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey, which have begun to make their global presence felt.

Who could have imagined such Bangladeshi progress even 10 years ago?

But the women textile workers have achieved much more for their country. They have helped to change the social fabric, so that in key indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, the schooling of girls and combatting undernourishment of children, Bangladesh is now superior to its big neighbor, India.

Does Obama wish to bring his sledgehammer policies to crush their future and that of Bangladesh?

It would have been — would be — far better for Obama to use carrots before resorting to a stick. The U.K. government has shown a more enlightened attitude by asking leading companies buying goods from Bangladesh how they can work together to improve the standards of the factories. European retailers have also shown the right attitude — to try to make the working conditions safer and better for the women. But their U.S. counterparts walked away from any such deal, not wishing to get involved in legal obligations.

There is surely room for big international retailers to squeeze their profits to ensure safer production. Industry sources calculate that Bangladesh women get the lowest monthly pay of all the Asian women working in garment factories, a mere $37 for a 48-hour working week, against $120 in Cambodia, $145 in Vietnam, $300 in factories near Jakarta and $500 in Guangdong.

At the international level, where is World Bank President Jim Kim?

He has been quick to make grand statements about defeating poverty globally, but in this key area of actually doing something to protect vulnerable workers who are trying to raise themselves out of poverty, I cannot find a single word from Kim or the bank or indeed from the Asian Development Bank or from big international aid givers, apart from the United Kingdom.

Are they waiting for the Bangladesh government to ask for help to defeat its own corrupt part in allowing infringement of building codes that led to the rise and fall of unsafe factories and for protection of the politically connected factory owners who profit from slave labor and exploiting the women? Shame.

First published in Japan Times, July 23, 2013

Kevin Rafferty is a professor at the Institute for Academic Initiatives at Osaka University

Bangladesh Political Riots Threaten Booming Textile, Apparel Exports

ALEX FRANGOS in Hong Kong, SYED ZAIN AL-MAHMOOD in Dhaka, Bangladesh

BIMAN MUKHERJI contributed from New Delhi

TROUBLES IN Bangladesh are beginning to spoil its reputation among foreign companies that had flooded into the country—and are highlighting risks to investors looking for new manufacturing bases cheaper than China.

An upswing in the past few years that had lifted this impoverished South Asian nation into one of the world's top clothing exporters now risks slipping through its fingers after a series of tumultuous events.

Violent protests this month over the sentencing of three Islamist opposition leaders for war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence have led to at least 60 deaths and widespread strikes.

The protests come on the heels of two apparel factory fires, one in November and a smaller one in January, which killed a combined 119 garment workers and attracted widespread negative press overseas. Rights groups said the fires reflected sometimes-dangerous working conditions and lax enforcement of labor standards in an economy that has become a major supplier to American and European retailers.

Now, some companies are speaking of the country in the past tense.

"Bangladesh was a good place to do business. But you have to read the political trends in the world," says Christophe Roussel, chief executive for global nonfood sourcing and logistics at Tesco Corp., the world's third-largest retailer after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Carrefour SA.

"We are already moving away from Bangladesh," adds Veit Geise, vice president for sourcing at VF Corp., a Greensboro, N.C., company that owns brands such as Wrangler, Timberland and Nautica. "How many eggs do you want in a basket that's basically a powder keg?" Both men were speaking at a meeting of supply-chain executives about sourcing goods in Asia sponsored by the French Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

It isn't the first time pessimism arises around Bangladesh's garment industry; in 2005, the lifting of textile quotas fed worries that smaller garment-producing countries would be crushed by China's greater ability to export. But despite such concerns, Bangladesh's exports have continued to increase. According to data supplied by Bangladesh's Export Promotion Bureau, garment exports grew by more than 10% in the first eight months of the fiscal year ending in June, helped by diversification into emerging markets.

Any effects of concerns around the recent volatility won't be seen for a while. Nevertheless, in the latest period, exports to traditional markets in Europe and North America slowed to a combined growth of around 5% from a year earlier. Analysts say this may be a reflection of nervousness among the world's largest retailers due to sluggish economies as well as a reluctance to risk shipment delays.

The latest unrest ignited Feb. 5 when a war-crimes tribunal sentenced a senior Islamist politician to life in prison. Two other opposition figures have been sentenced to death, sparking what many have called Bangladesh's worst riots since independence from Pakistan. Local producers say they also are suffering from the turmoil.

"We are badly hit," says Rubana Huq, managing director of garment exporter Mohammadi Group. "Thousands of trucks carrying goods to Chittagong port have been burned or damaged during strikes in the last two weeks. Manufacturers are chartering cargo aircrafts to make up for lost time. The country's image has been badly damaged."

Bangladesh had been one of the biggest beneficiaries of a major reordering of the world's low-end manufacturing in the past few years. Rising pay in China has forced companies to find less-costly production locales, especially for goods that require armies of laborers such as apparel, shoes and linens. Bangladesh's exports of clothes have nearly doubled since 2008, creating thousands of jobs and putting a new sheen on the long-struggling economy.

But what many companies have found is that countries like Bangladesh—which seem like alternatives to China, including Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia— have their own obstacles. While salaries might be lower, political instability, poor infrastructure, recurring strikes and labor-law complexities can add their own costs. China's deep supply-chain network is hard to replicate quickly elsewhere, making it difficult for some factory owners to move. Nike Inc. recently said only eight of the 896 factories it worked with in 2011 were in Bangladesh as it reduces its exposure to countries presenting reputational risks.

That means there could be a limit to how much production actually leaves China in the coming years, economists say.

"Whereas China wiped out Korea's textile industry, Bangladesh or Cambodia won't wipe out China's," says Ben Simpfendorfer of Silk Road Economics in Hong Kong.

Tesco has already moved aggressively to diversify its sources of goods away from China. The low-price retailer has reduced its reliance on Chinese factories from about 80% of its goods a few years ago to 60% today, Mr. Roussel said, with Bangladesh playing a big role in that transition. But after recent volatility in the country, Tesco is thinking twice. "We were overloaded in Bangladesh," he said. "It's not about the conditions in the factory; it's the country itself."

Tesco is looking for manufacturing sites closer to its core European markets, such as Turkey, Eastern Europe and Africa. But China will remain its biggest supplier, he says, as China will remain dominant in industries such as toys and electronics.

Any further loss of investor interest in Bangladesh would mark a big lost opportunity for the country, which remains one of the poorest in Asia, with a per capita gross domestic product of less than $2,000 and a history of natural disasters.

What it does have going for it is a large population, with most of its 150 million people of working age, and relatively low wages, which helped fuel a manufacturing boom centered around garment making. After years of rapid growth, Bangladesh's clothing exports have hit close to $20 billion, nearly as much as the second-largest exporter, Italy, according to World Trade Organization data. China, the world's largest clothing exporter, sent abroad $154 billion of clothes in 2011.

Neighboring India has looked on with envy as Bangladesh scooped up more business in recent years. India's garment exports are expected to be around $13 billion this fiscal year which ends in March, around the same as last year and short of the government's target of $18 billion.

But now India sees an opening. A Sakthivel, chairman of India's state-backed Apparel Export Promotion Council, estimates around $500 million of orders have shifted from Bangladesh to India in the past four months. "Some of the buyers are coming back to India," he says.

Azizur Rahman, a senior official of the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone, denied that foreign investors may be pulling out. "The government is determined to keep the export-oriented industries free from political strife," he said. "We have plenty of investment in the pipeline and we hope to maintain our rapid growth."

The government has remained bullish, setting an export target of $28 billion for the 2013 fiscal year ending June 30.

But many manufacturers around Dhaka are skeptical. Garment-industry leaders say buyers have canceled scheduled trips due to the unrest, while manufacturers have incurred steep transport costs to make deadlines.

"The orders are still coming, but we will see the negative effect of the political upheaval in the coming months," said Ahsan Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Instute, a Dhaka-based think tank.

Bangladesh's textile industry is also facing challenges in keeping wages low. Although the minimum wage set by the government of $36.50 a month has remained the same since 2010, wages are set to be reviewed by the government next year, and pressure from labor groups has been rising.

Owners were forced to temporarily close 300 private garment factories in the Ashulia industrial belt outside Dhaka in June last year after clashes between workers and police. The factories reopened after three-way talks between government ministers, manufacturers and workers' unions, and the government promised to give ration cards to workers to buy commodities at subsidized rates.

All those pressures mean more foreign companies may move to reduce exposure to the country, and potentially other nations seen as alternatives to China.

"We source significantly from Cambodia and Bangladesh, but we do want to put a kind of cap on those countries," says Richard Thomas, head of Far East for U.K. department-store chain Marks & Spencer. "There are the political issues and risks associated with them. My personal view is that you shouldn't source more than about 25% of your goods globally from a place like that."

A version of this article appeared March 22, 2013, on page A11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall StreetJournal

The Female Factor: Success in a Land Known for Disasters

Photo: Munem Wasif for the International Herald Tribune: Nur Jahan cared for a relative at a hospital. Ms. Jahan worked on a road maintenance crew for two years and hopes to one day run for a local government position.

BETTINA WASSENER

SOMESHPUR, Bangladesh — To many outsiders, Bangladesh is best known for its poverty and the natural disasters that hit it with depressing regularity.

When it comes to the position of women, however, this country has made progress that would be unthinkable in many other Muslim societies. Bangladeshi women have served in U.N. peacekeeping missions. There are women ambassadors, doctors, engineers and pilots. Two powerful women — the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and her political rival, Khaleda Zia — have been alternating at the country’s helm for years. The proportion of parliamentary seats held by women is 19.7 percent, not much lower than the 22.3 percent in the British House of Commons.

“This is a country where women are active in every field,” Dipu Moni, the minister of foreign affairs, said at her office in Dhaka, the capital. Ms. Moni, the daughter of a prominent politician and a Western-educated lawyer and physician, has campaigned for years for women’s rights and improved health provisions in the country.

Such efforts by successive governments and development organizations have led to major improvements in the lives of women across the country, with expanded access to health care and basic education in rural and urban areas. Decades of microlending and, more recently, the burgeoning garment sector have underpinned the progress by turning millions of women into breadwinners for their families.

Nur Jahan, who lives in Someshpur, a ramshackle village of about 1,000 people four hours from Dhaka, illustrates how tough life remains for many Bangladeshi women, but also how many women’s lives are transforming.

Ms. Jahan’s husband abandoned her, penniless and in rags, on the main square of Someshpur when she was pregnant with her second child about 10 years ago. A compact and vivacious woman who is about 26 years old — no one keeps exact records — Ms. Jahan spent years doing odd jobs for other households to keep herself and her children above water. In a country that ranks as one of the poorest in the world, she was about as low as it is possible to get.

Then, two years ago, luck finally arrived, in the form of a development project that arranged for women who had been widowed or left by their husbands to get jobs maintaining roads in the vicinity.

The project, funded by the European Union and the U.N. Development Program, and implemented with the assistance of local governments, helped about 24,400 women like Ms. Jahan across Bangladesh.

For two years, they cleared shrubs and smoothed surfaces. They were paid 100 taka, or about $1.20, a day. But the savings they accumulated allowed many of them to buy a plot of land or a humble dwelling. In addition, they were taught to start tiny businesses that should allow them to make a living going forward.

Ms. Jahan now makes and sells compost, and trades dried fish. Others in the village sell wood, cookies or stationery for a slim profit. One became the proud owner of a hand loom. Instead of being destitute, these women are now merely poor. They can afford to eat and to send their children to school.

Ms. Jahan hopes to run for a local government position in a few years. Already, people come to her for help, she explained proudly. Recently, the relatives of a sick neighbor asked her to accompany them to the local clinic. Before, they would have hardly looked at her.

“When I think about my past, I want to cry,” she said. “When I think about life now, it is nothing but smiles.”

The roots of much of the development work were laid in the aftermath of the Bangladeshi war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. What started off as efforts to support the tens of thousands of women who were widowed during the fighting was later expanded into much wider efforts to alleviate poverty and facilitate women’s empowerment, said Ferdousi Sultana Begum, senior social development officer at the Asian Development Bank in Dhaka.

“There is still a long way to go, but there has been a lot of gradual progress, especially over the past two decades,” she said. Girls’ education, in particular, has been embraced widely, she added.

Statistics, too, underline the improvement in women’s lives. The number of births by teenage mothers, for example, plummeted to 78.9 per 1,000 in 2010 from 130.5 in 2000. That is still high by Western standards (the figure for the United States is 41.2), but it is below the 86.3 recorded in India.

Fewer babies die in Bangladesh than in India: 52 out of 1,000, compared with 66 in India and 87 in Pakistan.

And population growth has been stemmed. In the late 1980s, women in Bangladesh had on average 5.1 children. By 2009, the rate had been more than halved, to 2.3. India has a rate of 2.7, according to the World Bank.

The progress comes despite the toughest of backdrops. Over all, Bangladesh ranks 146th of 187 countries on an index measuring human development compiled by the U.N. Development Program — ahead of Myanmar and many African countries but behind Iraq. Nearly one-third of the population lives in poverty. Corruption, red tape and poor infrastructure mar everyday life. Access to clean water and electricity is scarce in the villages that dot the flat landscape of the country, whose 160 million inhabitants squeeze into an area smaller than Florida and larger than Greece.

Conservative traditions are deeply enshrined in this country, where about 70 percent of the population lives in the countryside. There are frequent reports of domestic violence, often related to demands for dowry payments. And many women who have achieved top leadership positions owe their prominence in part to powerful male relatives.

But while women in many other Muslim nations are seeing their rights eroded by the rise of conservative Islamism, this is not the case in Bangladesh. Extremism is a fringe phenomenon, and women’s development projects encounter little religious opposition.

The country is predominantly Muslim, but moderate; Buddhist and Hindu traditions are widely respected, and there is a widespread acceptance of the concept that women can work outside the home.

Microlending, which took off in the 1980s, has allowed many women to start tiny businesses over the years.

More recently, millions of people have found work in the garment sector, which accounts for about three-quarters of exports from Bangladesh.

At the Mustafa Garments Industries factory in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, hundreds of women, most in their 20s and early 30s, were recently bent over sewing machines and cutting tables, making shorts for customers in the United States and Europe.

The factory employs about 500 people — 95 percent of them women — who earn between 4,500 and 5,000 taka a month, according to Kallol Majumder, the general manager. That is about $2 a day — but even that gives them breadwinner status. And it underlines the fact that women in Bangladesh are not simply recipients of Western charity, but active economic agents in their own right.

“Bangladesh is undergoing a structural change in the economy, from agricultural to manufacturing,” said Stefan Priesner, the U.N. Development Program country director in Dhaka. “Women have played a huge role in this.”

On the education front, men still outnumber women in universities. But the number of women enrolling has risen steadily. In an attempt to help redress the balance, a women-only university was set up in Chittagong in 2008.

Kamal Ahmad, a Bangladeshi who worked for many years in development organizations and as a lawyer in the United States and Britain, spent years raising donations and lobbying the government for land for the university. The goal for the Asian University for Women, he said, is to create women leaders capable of bringing about change across Asia.

The first class is expected to graduate next year, and many of the students already have plans to set up businesses, campaign groups, banks or schools in their 12 respective home countries.

“I have a real responsibility to help social progress,” said Moumita Basak, a bubbly 21-year-old from Chittagong. Her goal: to become a writer, and set up organizations aimed at promoting social causes.

First published in The New York Times, New York, USA, April 9, 2012