Introduction
The protection of the rights of women and gender-diverse communities is currently facing a severe crisis in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Although macro-level statistical indicators occasionally suggest rapid progression, these figures sit in stark contrast to the persistent systemic violations, gender-based violence, and institutional deficits that characterise the domestic landscape. Bangladesh’s human rights volatility is reflected in its dramatic fluctuations on international benchmarks, notably a 40-place drop to 99th on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index in June 2024 (WEF, 2025). This steep drop was driven by a severely depressed Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex score of 31.1% and methodological corrections to baseline figures (WEF, 2025). Paradoxically, the 2025 index recorded a dramatic 75-place surge, positioning the country 24th globally with an overall gender parity score of 77.5% (WEF, 2025). This single-year rebound was primarily driven by the Political Empowerment subindex, in which the representation of women in ministerial positions rose from 9.1% to 22.2% (BBF Digital, 2026). Despite these high-level political appointments, the fundamental socioeconomic and legal realities of women remain highly insecure, and while the Constitution formally guarantees equality before the law under Article 27 and forbids sex-based discrimination under Article 28, these rights are not reflected in practice. Deeply ingrained patriarchal cultural norms, weak judicial enforcement, and a severe lack of police accountability enable violence and discrimination to take place with near-total impunity, a gap further widened by the state’s continued reservations to core provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
International Legal Frameworks and Domestic Laws
As a signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and a ratifier of the ICCPR and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Bangladesh has legally committed to upholding international law in order to end gender discrimination, shield women from damaging customs, and ensure bodily autonomy (United Kingdom Home Office, 2023). Despite these international commitments, Bangladesh’s domestic legal systems are fractured, marked by significant regional differences and legal inconsistencies. Upon ratifying CEDAW in 1984, the government entered reservations to Articles 2 and 16(1)(c), which remain to this day under the pretext of preventing backlash from conservative religious groups (CEDAW, 1984). Article 2 requires states to eliminate gender discrimination from domestic legislation, while Article 16(1)(c) guarantees equal rights during marriage and at its dissolution. Despite a 2013 Law Commission recommendation to withdraw these reservations, consecutive administrations have maintained them, which continues to limit the implementation of gender equality laws and leaves family matters to be governed by discriminatory religious personal laws.
The laws pertaining to family and child marriage are a clear example of this legislative division and legal inconsistency. Under traditional Muslim personal status laws, daughters are generally entitled to only half the share of property inherited by sons, whereas under the Dayabhaga school of Hindu law, women inherit only a limited life interest in property, leaving them economically dependent on male relatives (OxHRH, 2023). Furthermore, the legal framework surrounding child marriage contains significant loopholes. The Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2017 (CMRA) maintained the minimum marriageable age at 18 for females and 21 for males, but introduced a highly controversial loophole under Section 19 (CMRA, 2017). This “special provision” permits the marriage of a minor of unspecified age under “special circumstances” in the “best interest of the minor” requiring only parental consent and judicial authorisation (OxHRH, 2023). The subsequent Child Marriage Restraint Rules of 2018 interpreted these special circumstances to include teenage pregnancies resulting from romantic relationships, effectively legalising child marriage as a solution to non-marital pregnancy and leaving victims with no access to simple annulment.
Additionally, due to the absence of consistent protections for gender-diverse and LGBTQIA+ individuals, implementation and protection are extremely weak. While Hijras have been legally recognised as a “third gender” since 2013, the state has not established clear, accessible legal pathways for gender transition on official documents, and the legal definition of “third gender” remains highly ambiguous. Furthermore, other gender-diverse and transgender people who do not identify as Hijra are largely unrecognised and socially marginalised. Same-sex sexual activity remains criminalised under Section 377 of the Penal Code, which carries penalties of up to life imprisonment (Penal Code, 1860). Although Section 377 is rarely enforced through formal prosecutions, human rights groups report that it is routinely used by law enforcement to harass, extort, and arbitrarily detain LGBTQIA+ individuals, directly violating Bangladesh’s international obligations under the ICCPR.
Crackdown on Gender Rights and Bodily Autonomy
The bodily autonomy as well as the physical safety of women and girls in Bangladesh have been facing increasing threats in recent years. Legal and customary methods are actively employed to uphold patriarchal control, resulting in the systemic suppression of personal choices and of the fundamental right to live without violence. According to a nationwide survey compiled by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 72.6% of married women have experienced some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetimes, yet fewer than 3% seek legal action due to pervasive social stigma and secondary victimisation by law enforcement (BBS, 2015). Furthermore, recent data compiled by domestic human rights organisations indicates a severe escalation in gender-based violence. In 2025, the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad documented 786 reported victims of rape and gang rape, 543 of whom were minor girls under the age of 18 (BMP, 2025). Official police records for the same year registered 7,068 rape cases, while Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) recorded 180 reported rapes between January and April 2026, including 16 victims under the age of six and 40 victims under twelve (ASK, 2026). Additionally, boy rape remains an underreported crime due to rigid societal expectations surrounding masculinity; ASK documented 111 cases of boy rape in 2023–2024, 48 cases in 2025, and 15 cases in early 2026 (ASK, 2026).
Particularly in rural and conservative areas, traditional parallel justice systems take precedence over official state courts, structurally sustaining the epidemic of physical violence. Local village and tribal disputes are frequently settled through Salish, an informal, traditional mediation process led by village elders (morols) and mullahs, whose local authority creates a parallel justice system. These parallel tribunals often prioritise family honour over individual rights, resolving disputes through coercive compromises or illegal religious edicts (fatwas) that humiliate or penalise female victims. A prominent example of this practice occurred in the landmark case of Hena, a 14-year-old rape victim who was sentenced to 100 lashes under an informal fatwa issued by a village imam, subsequently dying from her injuries, while the perpetrator escaped punishment (IDSA, 2011). Local police and public officials regularly tolerate these informal councils, despite a 2010 High Court ruling directing law enforcement to prevent extrajudicial punishments under fatwas, leaving victims of customary violence with essentially no access to official channels of judicial protection.
Similarly, the formal prosecution of sexual offences faces significant legal and procedural challenges. For decades, the prosecution of sexual violence was undermined by Section 155(4) of the Evidence Act of 1872, which permitted the defence to discredit a rape survivor’s testimony by showing she was “of a generally immoral character” (Evidence Act, 1872). Following a sustained campaign by human rights coalitions, the parliament passed the Evidence (Amendment) Act in November 2022 to close this loophole, repealing Section 155(4) and prohibiting cross-examination regarding a victim’s moral character or past sexual behaviour without prior court permission (Evidence Act, 2022). However, because rape is prosecuted under the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain of 2000, which was amended in 2020 to introduce the death penalty for rape, severe sentences have done little to deter crimes due to weak enforcement and procedural delays. Although the High Court recently mandated that rape investigations must be completed within 15 days and trials concluded within 90 days following the 2025 Magura child rape case, investigations remain severely hampered by delayed medical exams, inadequate forensic facilities, and a lack of gender-sensitive training among police officers.
Cyber Harassment and the Weaponisation of Penal Laws
As physical spaces for women’s mobilisation have increasingly become more constrained in Bangladesh, digital platforms, such as social media, have emerged as crucial spaces for women’s rights advocacy and expression. The state has nonetheless had difficulty protecting these online spaces, and its cyberspace has turned into an extremely hostile and monitored area where women and people of different gender identities are actively targeted. The legislative evolution of cyber regulations demonstrates a continuous pattern of broad state control, beginning with Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act of 2006, which criminalised the online transmission of “fake, obscene, or defamatory” information under penalties of up to 14 years in prison (ICT Act, 2006). This was replaced by the Digital Security Act (DSA) of 2018, which distributed these vague provisions into multiple standalone offences carrying criminal penalties for speech deemed to injure religious feelings, communal harmony, or create instability (DSA, 2018). In September 2023, the DSA was replaced by the Cyber Security Act (CSA), which human rights groups such as Amnesty International identified as a direct replication, retaining 58 of its 62 provisions (Amnesty International, 2024). Following political transitions, the interim government issued the Cyber Security Ordinance (CSO) of 2025, which introduced some bailable clauses but retained vague terms such as “cyber terrorism” and “obscenity”.
Under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government in 2026, these cyber laws have been routinely weaponised to silence critics and survivors of abuse. Vague clauses like Section 26 of the CSO, which criminalises publishing online content that “creates anxiety” or “hurts religious sentiments” carry criminal penalties that grant state agencies a great degree of discretion (CSO, 2025). For example, on April 17, 2026, cartoonist A.M. Hasan Nasim was arrested following a complaint from a ruling-party activist regarding a satirical post (HRW, 2026). Similarly, on April 5, 2026, Sawoda Sumi was arrested under Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows warrantless arrests based on broad “credible information”, for posting comments critical of the government (Jurist, 2026). In addition, the state’s operational response to cyberviolence is also deeply flawed, as investigators routinely fail to recognise the seriousness of gendered cyber harassment, leaving survivors like university student Amina, who filed an online harassment case in 2020, waiting years with no legal recourse (IPI, 2020).
Collective gender-diverse movements and representations are also frequent targets of online harassment and censorship. This was highlighted by the 2024 textbook controversy surrounding “Sharifa’s Tale” a seventh-grade curriculum story designed to foster social inclusion for the Hijra community. Following public objections from conservative figures like Asif Mahtab, who tore the textbook pages during a seminar to protest transgender concepts, right-wing disinformation campaigns forced the Ministry of Education to form an inquiry committee (JMBF, 2024). Despite the story’s intention to reduce prejudice, the Ministry of Education capitulated to religious pressure and censored the textbook, removing the story in June 2024 (Dhaka Tribune, 2024). While the Hijra community has been legally recognised as a “third gender” since 2013, the broader transgender community faces significant social exclusion and digital backlash, showing that digital spaces do not provide a safe haven for free speech in Bangladesh.
Conclusion
Addressing the systemic oppression of women and gender-diverse communities in Bangladesh requires a coordinated legal and policy effort. The state must bridge the gap between its international human rights commitments and domestic enforcement mechanisms by dismantling parallel traditional systems that bypass formal courts. To ensure the protection of gender rights and the fundamental liberties of all citizens, the following key reforms must be implemented and upheld:
- Repeal the Loophole in Section 19 of the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2017,
- Withdraw CEDAW Reservations and Formulate a Uniform Family Code,
- Reform Cyber Security Statutes to Protect Free Speech and Online Safety,
- Eradicate Extra-judicial Parallel Adjudications,
- Codify Transgender Protection and Recognition Frameworks.
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