| Popis: |
While gender discrimination is a global phenomenon and treating women as inferior in every sphere of life is a norm in under-developed countries, the position of women in Muslim countries — such as Bangladesh — is generally assumed to be even worse than that of women in ‘non-Muslim’ countries. Undoubtedly, Bangladeshi women in general, the rural poor in particular, are on the lowest rung of life’s ladder. Their persecution and degradation at the hands of patriarchy, strengthened and justified with the expulsion of Taslima Nasreen from the country in 1994 and the sudden rise in the dispension of fatwas by mullas in rural courts (salish) against women, which even led to several deaths (suicide and murder) of poor women in the countryside further aggravated the situation. By 1995, hundreds of women had been tried in sham rural courts, run by village elders and their associates (mullas), for allegedly violating the Sharia law and Islamic codes of conduct. |
