Hana Shams Ahmed

“A single woman is like molasses, ants will follow her wherever she is kept.”

— A lecherous landlord (the character played by Abul Hayat in the film Third Person Singular Number)

Nick Henderson

Hana Shams Ahmed

[The Daily Star, 19th Anniversary Special Issue, February 25, 2010]

AN interesting debate popped up around Mostafa Sarwar Farooki’s film “Third Person Singular Number” when it was released late last year. It began in a Bangla newspaper and poured onto the English blog Unheard Voices. The newspaper reported that students of a private university had held a human chain to protest obscenity in the film — among others, the discussion centred around the concept of “living together” not being acceptable in our society, a scene showing someone purchasing a contraceptive device, and questions about the “character” of the film’s protagonist Tisha because she was living with a man she was not married to. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Hasan Ahmed

By Hana Shams Ahmed

A bank’s billboard shows “achievement” as perceived by three groups – The child’s achievement is learning the skill of tying a shoelace, the man’s is taking his first step on the moon and finally the woman’s achievement is getting crowned in a beauty pageant. Read the rest of this entry »

Hana Shams Ahmed

Anwara Begum’s new book takes a look at women in the Bangladesh media. She argues that TV ads don’t only sell products but also attitudes and in the process set standards of beauty and mannerism, as defined by men. Hana Shams Ahmed reflects on the stereotyping of women.

[OneWorld South Asia, 8 October, 2009]

Dhaka: Dighi is the darling of the Bangladeshi media. She has long, beautiful hair and has just the right moves that will keep the viewers glued to the TV screen. There are life-size photos of her on big billboards in the city and big roles in films and drama serials already.

It was a commercial for a brand of henna that gave her the big break. In the ad, with a face full of pinkish makeup, she flaunts her translucent pearl-coloured hands exquisitely decorated with dark henna. Her on-screen friends gaze at her hands longingly, wishing they too could look like her.

Of course, this feeling is shared by thousand of girls who are on the other side of the television screen. Although Dighi’s hands look beautiful, one doubts whether that is what the viewers are focusing on.

The attention is clearly on what she represents. As Anwara Begum points out in her book, ‘Magical Shadows: Women in the Bangladesh Media’ (AH Development Publishing House, 2008), “TV ads don’t only sell products, they sell attitudes.” At an innocent age of 10 years, Dighi is the nation’s favourite child model. Read the rest of this entry »

By Hana Shams Ahmed

[Women’s Feature Services, May 26, 2009]

At a public meeting in Noakhali district in the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh, Agriculture Minister Motia Chowdhury had a strange encounter. Throughout the proceedings, a group of men stood with their backs toward her. The men, as it turned out, were conservative Muslim clerics, who found it difficult to accept a woman as a leader, but at the same time could not pass up the opportunity of listening to her speech.

Chowdhury is a leading woman politician in Bangladesh. Her involvement in politics goes back to Eden Girls’ College in Dhaka where she became vice president of the students’ union in 1963. She served a jail sentence for political activities in 1964-65 and actively participated in the liberation movement in 1971. In 1990, Chowdhury also actively took part in the movement against the rule of the Ershad junta, which ultimately ended an eight-year military rule. After democracy was restored in 1991, she was one of the few women to win a non-reserved seat in parliament. (In the original constitution, 15 seats were reserved for women. By 2004, this rose to 45 seats.) Chowdhury served as the Agriculture Minister in the Awami League (AL) government from 1996-2001. And is heading the same ministry in the recently elected AL government. Her feisty personality and determination to break barriers in a patriarchal political set-up has earned her the title ‘Agni Konna’ (daughter of fire). Read the rest of this entry »

Tanvir Murad Topu

Hana Shams Ahmed talks to Sara Hossain about domestic violence

[FORUM magazine, THE DAILY STAR, May 2009]

In December of last year, a case was brought to court by 33-year-old Dr. Humayra Abedin, with the help of human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), against her own family, for confining her against her will.

She had come to Dhaka in August of that year after being told that her mother was seriously ill. As soon as she arrived home, her parents hid her passport and plane ticket and held her captive. She was forced to take mood stabilisers and anti-psychotic drugs until she confirmed that she would not be returning to the UK, and would give up her job and disassociate herself from everybody she knew there.

On November 14 she was allegedly forced to get married to someone against her will. There were repeated attempts on the part of her parents to not comply with court orders. They only responded after the court said it would hold them in contempt if they failed to show up. They kept claiming that Humayra was mentally ill therefore unable to appear.

After a fierce legal battle and after the High Court in England also passed orders requesting the co-operation of the Bangladesh judiciary and the authorities, her parents finally allowed Humayra to come to the Bangladesh High Court. Two judges interviewed Humayra in person and ordered her to be released and she immediately returned to the UK later that month.

Read the rest of this entry »

Zaid Islam

Hana Shams Ahmed and Quazi Zulquarnain Islam applaud the pioneering Bangladesh women’s cricket team

[FORUM magazine, THE DAILY STAR, May 2009]

In July 2004, Bangladesh Amateur Wrestling Federation (BAWF) postponed the first ever women’s wrestling competition, following threats from Islamist groups. One of the religious leaders, Mohiddin Khan said: “Female wrestling is nothing but showing off their bodies in front of male audience. This is totally immoral and against the teachings of Islam.”1

The event had been scheduled to take place at the Women’s Sports Complex. In October, members of the Islamic Shashantantra Andolon gathered in front of the National Sports Council to protest against the country’s first-ever women’s football tournament, clogging traffic in the area for three hours.2

In November of the same year, the Bangladesh government stopped women from taking part in a swimming competition in Chandpur, after a group that went by the name “The Committee for Resistance to Un-Islamic Activities” threatened large demonstrations if the competition was allowed to go ahead.3

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Zahedul I Khan

Hana Shams Ahmed

[THE DAILY STAR, 11 April, 2009]

Pull up the hood of your rickshaw,” I heard for the hundredth time. It was a very nice day, with the wind blowing, and the sun making occasional appearances. But the hood of the rickshaw had to be put up. After all, I had to ‘hide’ myself from the numerous gawking eyes that always followed me throughout the journey from Mohammadpur to Elephant Road, where I went to study my A-levels.

Out of sight of my parents, I would always pull down the hood, and unfortunately pairs of eyes of all ages would look me up and down as if I was an exhibit in an art gallery. Then, depending on the vulgarity of the yelled comment, I would have to decide whether to keep the hood down, or give up and put it back up.

Read the rest of this entry »

After a five-month ordeal in her home country of Bangladesh, 32-year-old doctor Humayra Abedin confirmed a forced marriage at the hands of her parents. But what does the incident reveal about Bangladeshi attitudes on domestic violence towards women?

by Hana Shams Ahmed

[Altmuslim.com, December 22, 2008]

Humayra Abedin, the only child of Mohammed Joynal Abedin, a retired businessman, and his wife, a housewife, was trained as a doctor in Bangladesh. She went to England in 2002 to attend Leeds University, eventually moving to East London and working in hospitals across the capital as she studied to become a doctor. According to UK press reports, when her family found out that she had developed a close friendship with a Hindu Bangladeshi man in London, they were furious and since May of this year, they have desperately been trying to force her into a marriage with a Muslim man.

Read the rest of this entry »

[STAR Magazine, September 12, 2008]

A working woman is an epitome of self-sufficiency and equality. She is expected to have overcome the socio-cultural dynamics of the gender battle and earned a place for herself in a brutally disparate system. But the work environment for women is anything but fair, from supervisors who hold back women’s advancement, to colleagues who make harassment a constant presence at work. In the absence of a code of conduct at organisations, and no legal support, it has an extremely negative impact on women’s performance and future in the workplace.

Hana Shams Ahmed

Fahima* used to work in a local NGO. Her supervisor regularly directed verbal sexual innuendos towards her. After work he would ask her to come to his office on the excuse of ‘additional work’. He would then tell her stories with sexual connotations. Ignoring his advances only made matters worse — he started getting aggressive. When she could not bear it any more, she told her husband what was going on. But her husband, instead of helping her, accused her of “leading him on” and asked her to quit her job. Facing this double blow, she came to Bangladesh National Women’s Lawyer’s Association (BNWLA) to file a legal complaint against her supervisor. Unfortunately, social and family pressure pushed her to change her mind — she not only withdrew her case after a few days — she eventually resigned from her job. In the end, both her workplace harasser and her husband satisfied their male egos at the cost of Fahima’s career.

Read the rest of this entry »

[Cover Image: Zahidul I Khan]

Sir asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Before I had time to react he said, “No? Well I don’t mind even if you do, you can still have an affair with me.”

I went into sir’s room with a friend to ask him if I could come in. He said, “How am I supposed to feel if I ask one guest to come and two guests come instead?”

I went to talk to sir, he asked me to seek his blessings for the impending exams in the traditional manner by touching his feet. When I went to do it, he put his arms around me and kissed me. I was so stunned, I did not know how to react. Read the rest of this entry »

by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, November 24, 2006]

Mahmuda was a very ordinary teenager living in a small village in Nilphamari. The only thing that made her life different from many others was that her father died when she was very small, leaving her mother and her in a state of extreme poverty and helplessness. Mahmuda and her mother were forced to go back to her maternal grandfather’s house and live on whatever her uncles settled to spare for them. As young as she was, Mahmuda did not want to live on someone else’s money for the rest of her life. She thought she had the capability of earning a decent living on her own and was determined to go out and get it. A very brave decision for a girl so young! But the steps she took next would change her life forever. Read the rest of this entry »