Part 1- Dowry:

In Bangladesh, dowry is a pattern of marriage payments settled openly or

discreetly mostly before the wedding. It's a typical tradition which is followed in
Bangladesh. Dowry system is emerged in Hindu religion first. Later the Muslims and
people from other religion, also started to incorporate to this in tradition, it has become a
forced tradition. The practice of the payment of dowry during marriage has developed in
the society mainly in the 1970s. Now a day's rich people provide dowry willingly and
they name it as marriage gift. But in the course of time, this social evil has become
endemic which is seriously affecting the lives of married women.

Prevalence of Dowry Menace: 

Dowry is one of the most common forms of gender-based discrimination in

Bangladesh. Every year thousands of women face serious social, psychological and
physical tortures due to dowry-related disputes.
According to The Daily Star report, 5'699 women faced dowry-related
violence from 2001 to 2017 and the rate of homicides and suicides due to dowry
was also high during the period. One of the organization(works on human rights)
stated that at least 256 women faced dowry-related violence while 129 women were
killed or took their own lives in 2017.

A another study show's 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.

Impacts of Dowry:

The impacts of dowry practice are very harsh and alarming, as it causes
physical, mental and social agonies. Issuing threats by the husband to divorce the
wife and sending her back to her father’s family are a very common practice in
Bangladesh if the demand is not fulfilled. ."Studies have found that dowry is one of
the main reasons for domestic violence". Refusal to provide dowry leads to serious
physical abuse, deaths and sometimes even provokes women to commit suicide.
Dowry related violence against women has been on the rise. Verbal abuses are
another form of oppression. Sometimes all this ends up in killings and brutal
torture.

One of the main reasons why women cannot abscond from their ill-fate is
poverty. Advocate Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain O Shalish Kendro, said
“Dowry is strongly linked to women's poverty. Poverty makes women vulnerable”.
Poverty also restricts women from going back to their parents' houses as they may
not be economically able to accommodate her; in addition, there is a strong stigma
attached to it.

Impacts on Society:

Dowry system has affected our whole society. At present a father can not
think of the marriage of his daughter without giving dowry to the bridegroom. It has
become one of the social custom. people consider that dowry is social custom which
they need to follow and keep the long standing practice alive in society. The
mindset of people as women are burden on society is also contributing the
prevalence of dowry.

There is a misconception in the society which is dowry increase the women's

status with her in-law. The parents of the bride thinks that dowry will establish
there dauther's position with her in-law's and she will live happy with her new
family. Demand for dowry depends on social, culture and educational background. It
has also contributed to an increase in child marriage, which has not yet been totally
eradicated; and above all, it diminishes the status of women in society.

Part 2 – Discriminations against Women:

 According to a 2015 survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), over 70 percent of married women or girls in Bangladesh
have faced some form of intimate partner abuse; about half of whom say their partners have
physically assaulted them. Bangladesh human rights group Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) reported
that at least 235 women were murdered by their husband or his family in just the first nine
months of 2020. According to another prominent Bangladesh human rights group, Odhikar,
between January 2001 and December 2019, over 3,300 women and girls were murdered over
dowry disputes. These numbers, however, are based on media reports and are likely only a
fraction of the true levels of such violence.

Violence against women and girls in Bangladesh appears to have further increased during
the Covid-19 pandemic with NGO hotlines reporting a rise in distressed calls. For instance, the
human rights and legal services program of BRAC, a major nongovernmental organization in
Bangladesh, documented a nearly 70 percent increase in reported incidents of violence against
women and girls in March and April 2020 compared to the same time last year.

This crisis comes at a time when Bangladesh is marking the anniversaries of two
landmark pieces of legislation on gender-based violence and entering the final phase of its
national plan to build “A society without violence against women and children by 2025.” In spite
of this goal, this report finds that the government response remains deeply inadequate and
barriers to reporting assault or seeking legal recourse are frequently insurmountable.

At the same time, violence against women and girls is so socially normalized that
survivors often don’t feel violence against them is something that would be taken seriously or is
worth reporting. When asked if she would file a police report after her husband forced her to
drink acid, Joya, 19, said her father told her “maybe later.” “What’s the point in complaining?”
she asked. The same 2015 BBS survey that found that over half of married women and girls had
suffered some form of abuse, also found that over 70 percent of these survivors never told
anyone and less than three percent took legal action. As one women’s rights lawyer put it:
“Society thinks domestic violence is silly violence, that it’s something that normally just happens
in the family.”

This report draws on 50 interviews to document the deep and systemic barriers to
realizing the government’s goal of a society without violence against women and children. We
interviewed 29 women from six of the eight divisions of Bangladesh who were survivors of
gender-based violence, including acid attacks, as well as women’s rights activists, lawyers, and
academics to understand the deep and systemic barriers to legal recourse and protection that
survivors face.

Among Bangladesh’s efforts to combat gender-based violence, the government’s success

in addressing acid violence stands out in particular. Since passing robust legislation alongside
effectively coordinated civil society campaigns, acid attacks dropped dramatically from 500
cases in 2002 to 21 recorded attacks in 2020, at time of writing.

As one lawyer explained, acid cases are the ones where it is “easiest” for survivors to
gain justice and support because of an active, well-coordinated, civil society response and
because the government has focused significant efforts. But even in these cases, legal recourse
remains unattainable for most survivors of acid violence.

This shortcoming points to one of the most glaring failures in the government’s efforts to
address not only acid violence, but gender-based violence more broadly: the immense barriers to
securing justice. As a lawyer from the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association
(BNWLA) said: “The number one obstacle to stopping gender-based violence is the criminal
justice system.”

This report finds that not only is the criminal justice system failing women and girls who
have survived gender-based violence, but that additional failures in response, protective
measures, and services seriously hinder survivors’ ability to access the justice system in the first
place.

Part 3- Dowry and Law Enforcements In Bangladesh:

Bangladesh has taken some important steps to address violence against women and girls.
Effective since 1980, this Dowry Prohibition Act made it illegal to exchange any
form of property or valuable assets in the name of dowry. The law was amended in
2017.

The amended Dowry Prohibition Act 2017 stipulates penalties of five years in
jail and Tk 50,000 in fine for demanding, receiving and giving dowry. In the old
law, the punishment for demanding, giving or receiving dowry was minimum one-
year prison term and maximum five years in jail or up to Tk 5,000 fines or both,
reports UNB.

In 2000, in partnership with the Danish government, Bangladesh inaugurated the Multi-
Sectoral Programme on Violence Against Women (MSPVAW) and developed a comprehensive
National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women and Children. Bangladesh also enacted
the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain  (Women and Children Repression Prevention Act) 2000,
replacing the landmark 1995 act under the same name, aimed at addressing a wide range of
violence that disproportionately impacts women and children. When acid attacks peaked at
nearly 500 reported cases in 2002—the vast majority of which targeted women and girls—public
pressure and concerted activism by women’s rights organizations and survivors spurred the
government to enact two laws: The Acid Offense Prevention Act, 2002 and The Acid Control
Act, 2002.

In 2010, Bangladesh passed the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act
(DVPP Act), an important step forward in defining domestic violence outside dowry violence to
include physical, psychological, sexual, and economic abuse. The act also laid out important
protections for victims and criminalized the breach of protection orders.

However, as Bangladesh marks the 20-year anniversary of the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan

Daman Ain, 2000 and the 10-year anniversary of the DVPP Act, it is clear that implementation of
these plans and laws is falling drastically short. As a lawyer from Naripokkho, one of the
country’s oldest women’s rights organizations, explained: “There are so many wonderful things
you will see in the national action plan, but when you look in the field, it isn’t happening.”

The Dowry Prohibition Act 1980 has been ineffective to prevent the practice of dowry in
Bangladesh. The Act leaves much discretion with the court to reduce the sentence, and
punishment may be imprisonment, which may extend to 5 years and shall not be less than 1 year,
or fine or both. Again, a fine is not fixed (Begum, 2004: 256). Begum (2004: 256–7)
recommends:‘Given the alarming increase of dowry incidents, the discretionary power of the
judge should be removed. Rather, provisions may be made that the specified penalty can
be increased when the taking of dowry exceeds the financial ability of the socially
underprivileged father of the bride’. The Act provides the same punishment for dowry
givers.It does not recognise the social reality of women in Bangladesh Parents of brides feel
compelled to give dowries to arrange their daughter’s marriage.