Mizanur Rahman, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, yesterday wanted to know from the authorities concerned the reasons behind writer Taslima Nasrin’s exile.
Mizanur also questioned the role of the country’s women community in bringing Taslima back home.
The NHRC chairman made the remarks while addressing a seminar titled “Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh: Expectation and Achievement,” at the Cirdap auditorium in the capital.
Mizanur also said, “Women’s rights will not go forward if we fail to avert communalism and fundamentalism.”
Referring to the recent attacks on members of the minority Hindu community before and after the January 5 parliamentary polls, he added: “I do not want to see my brothers and sisters leaving the country.”
Taslima Nasrin, a physician turned author, left the country in 1994 following death threats from an Islamic group for views expressed in her writings. She has lived in various countries in the West and in India since.
In an interview with the Indian state-run news agency, PTI, earlier this month, Taslima claimed that despite her feminist leanings, women leaders have not been sympathetic towards her.
She blamed Bangladeshi leaders Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for making her life “difficult”.
At yesterday’s seminar organised by the NHRC, Mizanur also claimed that women had not obtained real achievement, but were just coming out of deprivation.
“It has become impossible for women to come out of a patriarchy in which women themselves have become embedded,” said Dipu Moni, a member of parliament and a former foreign minister.
“Apart from considering a woman as a mother, we do not give women importance and they are ignored,” said Dipu while presenting a paper on the achievements of women.
Ayesha Khanam, president of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad said: “The society has not given every facility to women….Women have to come forward by their own effort.”
Rokeya Kabir, executive director of Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha, said the mindset of the people needed to be changed for empowering women.
Sharing her experience of a visit to a char (mudflat) area where pregnant women do not get proper food, author Selina Hossain said there were still ways to move ahead, but women themselves have to come forward.
Zakia, a participant at the seminar, said children’s achievements were always considered as a legacy of the father.
Journalist Abed Khan and NHRC member Nirupa Dewan also spoke at the seminar, which was conducted by Mahfuza Khanom, head of NHRC’s women’s rights committee.