Early this year, a 40-year-old woman from Tangail's Delduar Upazila was killed as she was set afire purportedly by her husband over the issue of dowry. But the darkness of this story does not end with it, as women getting tortured and killed over dowry is indeed a common occurrance in Bangladesh.
Whereas issues like child marriage, kidnapping, rape, and murder are still problems that we have to deal with in our country, the dowry system manifests as one of the most basic forms of gender-based discrimination has its effect. Many governments within the sub-continent have taken many initiatives to stop it with varying degrees of success but have failed to eradicate it completely. A study said that around 50% of all violence against women happens as a result of Bangladesh's dowry culture.
According to media reports, court records show that 374 women were killed for dowry in the city over the past 17 years, up until 2019. On average, 22 women are killed for dowry in Dhaka City every year. In the Dhaka Metropolitan area, in 2018, 14 women were killed because of an inability to pay dowry. 13 women were killed last year in January and February and 17 were physically abused over dowry.
Between January 2001 and December 2019, there were over 5,800 dowry-related incidents of violence against women, according to Odhikar. In addition, according to a Bangladesh human rights group, over 3,300 women and girls were murdered over dowry disputes during that time. According to Ain O Salish Kendra, in 2020, there were 73 cases in which women or girls were abused physically over dowry-related issues, and 66 more incidents ended with the husband or his family killing her.
These are just statistics that we all forget soon after feigning shock seeing for the first time on social media.
In 1980, under the Dowry Prohibition Act 1980, the dowry tradition became illegal, but the practice continues. From 1980 to 2018, the Dowry Prohibition Act 1980 was the chief instrument that was supposed to punish dowry-related crimes, related to the Women and Children Repression Act 2000.
Nevertheless, despite being illegal for decades, dowry practices are becoming even more frequent and harder to monitor. Several factors push families in Bangladesh to marry their girls off at a young age, the most popular reasons being poverty, illiteracy, and cultural pressures. Perversely enough, younger brides require smaller dowries. The amended Dowry Prohibition Act 2018 increases the jail time and penalties for demanding, giving, or receiving dowry.
However, nothing has changed.
In developed Western countries such as the UK and the US, they do not recognize the dowry system under their laws and make sure that the practice would be strictly dealt with.
The dowry system poses many dangerous problems to women in society. Primarily, it creates discrimination between boys and girls and men and women. Where the dowry system exists, a family thinks their daughter is a burden for them in the context of their society.
Moreover, a family usually suffers financial difficulty when they marry their daughter off, paying a large dowry. This leads to people's “son preference” mindset. Additionally, many parents think that spending money on girls' education is a waste; they believe they should save the money to pay the dowry instead.
In the end, the dowry system benefits no one, most definitely not women. The best way to slowly eradicate it from our society is to pave the way for women empowerment. Investing in female human capital and in the education of our girls, rather than paying dowries during the marriage, is the most basic way we can achieve that goal.
In order to nip dowries at the bud, policies need to create equal economic opportunities for women. In addition, along with strengthening the legal system's reach, there is a need to adopt more effective programs and campaigns against the practice of dowry and violence against women in general.
More steps also need to be taken in order to raise awareness on gender discrimination and improve female access to justice through the legal system. Parents must not be afraid of social shame, but they should take the step and prevent the tradition of paying a dowry. They must inspire their daughter not to bear the torture they face for dowry and raise their voice.
Md Fahmedul Islam Dewan is General Secretary, North South University Law & Mooting Society.