As Bangladesh gears up for the February 12 parliamentary elections, a troubling trend has emerged: female political participation remains abysmally low at roughly 4%, while threats against women and minorities intensify. Rights groups convened at the National Press Club on Tuesday to issue a clarion call for systemic change. Fauzia Moslem led the charge, slamming the meager female candidacy rate as unacceptable for a nation priding itself on development. The Social Resistance Committee, a coalition of 71 advocacy groups, demanded that political parties nominate more women and that the Election Commission overhaul the voting mechanism for reserved seats. Morium Nesa from ActionAid Bangladesh highlighted that women are often reduced to mere vote banks rather than being treated as full participants in governance. Official figures confirm that out of nearly 2,000 candidates, only 81 are women, a shortfall that critics say poses a dire threat to the health of the nation’s democracy.
