adhunika blog

by Labiba Ali

Like many of you, I’m still trying to find my calling, my passion, that thing that will motivate and stimulate my soul. This is called the ‘finding thyself’ process of life that we all, every now and then go through. I have been working in finance for the past 5 years and I realized now that finance is not the passion of my life. Of course I am grateful to finance for giving me the means to fund my real passions: traveling to exotic places, buying tons of books, attending concerts (Ravi Shankar, Chinese Opera). But now I find myself again at the crossroad of life. What do I really want to do with my life? I don’t want to be on autopilot, like 95% of Americans, leading a very routine and limited life. When I’m 80, I want to look back on my journey and know that my life docked on all the ghats of life’s river. The problem is that I want to do many things and not just one thing. I want to travel, learn about different cultures, write about my experiences, research classical Islamic jurisprudence, help save the environment, run a business that serves the BOP….do you see my dilemma? I think it’s safe to say that many of you are on the same boat as me, floating about on the same journey.
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We would like to hear from our readers on the following news from Bangladesh - How many of you think this will make a difference how ‘women’ are viewed on the street / at work force/ and our community ?  Do you think this actually will stop eve teasing ? Most importantly - when & how these guidelines will be implemented & enforced in the workplace ?

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Dhaka, May 14 (bdnews24.com)—The High Court on Thursday laid down a set of guidelines to prevent sexual harassment on women and children at work places, educational institutions and on the streets.

It has defined the harassment and said the compliance of the guidelines was mandatory until those were passed into law in parliament.

The bench of justices Syed Mahmud Hossain and Kamrul Islam Siddiqui gave the rulings on a petition filed in public interest by executive director of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association Salma Ali.

The petition was filed on Aug 7 last year following an incident of sexual harassment against a teacher of drama and dramatics at Jahangirnagar University.

The court in the guidelines asked authorities to set up sexual harassment complaint centres at work places, educational institutions and constitute committees to investigate charges.

A woman will head such committee that will have no fewer than five members, mostly women .

Sexually suggestive remarks directly or on the phone, indecent email, giving indecent looks and calling someone ‘Sundori’ in a bad sense will be admitted as sexual harassment in court.

“This revolutionary verdict will work as an amulet in preventing sexual harassment,” said Ali told reporters after the ruling.

The guidelines say names of the complainants and defendants will not be made public before one is proved guilty.

Lawyers can lodge complaint on behalf of the complainant and the security of the complainant must be ensured, the ruling said. Female complainants will be able to lodge complaint separately. The accused will be handed over to the police after he is proved guilty, says the guideline.

Hostile environment at work and educational institutions should be prevented. Divisional action should be taken against those responsible for sexual harassment at workplace, teh court said.

The punishment for sexual abuse can be both fine and imprisonment, said Fawzia Karim, lawyer for the petitioner.

After the petition was filed, the High Court asked the government and others concerned to explain why guidelines on sexual harassment will not be given.

The cabinet secretary, law secretary, women and children affairs secretary, labour secretary, chairman of Dhaka University Grant Commission and vice chancellors of Dhaka and Jahangirnagar universities were asked to reply.

SOURCE: http://www.bdnews24.com/details.php?id=84234&cid=2

Form our Archive  - Thoughts on Pohela Falgun & Valentine’s Day by our regular participant Moutushi Islam. Enjoy!

Love actually: Flowery as it can be?

The time of the year has come again to the singing and dancing, creating rainbows of saffron, yellow, and red, girls giggling, vibrant sarees by white punjabis, sudden glimpses of roses and hands, candies and chai- the festive ‘Bangalees’ are out again in the road, celebrating life, sharing their tales on the Pohela Falgun. Despite all our misfortunes either political or social or the climate catastrophe, we the Bengalis, have always been the agent of celebration. The recent popularity added to Pohela Falgun, is the Valentine’s Day, it’s the day to express one’s love to their loved ones, to the lover or the friend or the family. Be it the first day of the Bangla month of Falgun or the Valentine’s Day, like a long awaited lover of festivity, Bangladeshis are blowing their whistles loud, happiest and hopeful diving into the spirit of life.

Life actually: unveiling reality

It is past midnight the Valentine’s Day and the hype seems to banish quickly! I sit by my table, try to look through the window, through the cold winter night, and try to smell the city Dhaka where I grew up thousands miles away. I see Dhaka is busy back to daily life. Dhaka is wallowing itself into everyday struggle. Dhaka surprises me. How bright and vibrant the Pohela Falgun or the valentine’s day this year might be for the city dwellers, it necessarily does not portray any single glimpse of the stern reality the country has been facing recently. Surviving yearlong political transitions and months old cyclone, is it an escape from the truth or silently overlooking responsibility or is it just the way we are? Living strictly in the moment and forgetting past and what the future may be?

Well apparently the pohela falgun or valentine’s day undoubtedly is a great relief for the Bangladeshis from endless debates, and internal turmoil they have been walking through for years. And I know many of my friends in Bangladesh believe that talking about love and gifts are more sensible and healthier than talking about cyclones, price hikes in the bazaar or the never ending political instability; and as I completely agree with my fellows, I also question what else we perceive from it. What February 14^th can bring to the Bangladeshi lovers: thinking how love can rejuvenate life? Or for that matter may be reviving few old relationships or just checking with the current ones? Or should we go beyond the micro sphere, giving some of our thoughts to the city we live in, the country where we grew up? Should we think of how to make her more stable, more independent, and less corrupt? Should we think of our past and how the future would be for all?

Dear readers, my apology for moving away from my earlier notes on festivity to some strange topic, which has no association to the purity of love. But I find it difficult to talk only about love and rejoice when many of our people are barely surviving from post Sidr, or can not afford their staple meal, or majority are living below one dollar a day. Is it not time to get involved, to stand up for others until it knocks on my door? Stop veiling the reality? Or shall we keep digging so the war never ends?

I know this is not an ideal writing for something as gorgeous as Boshonto Uthshob or as serene as love. But dear readers let’s not forget that we are the ultimate inheritors of all the fortunes and misfortunes of this country.

If you are like us and want to find ways to make difference in others life through technology, then  join us to an exciting evening to share your ideas to empower women globally. The discussion will be led by none other than Sharmin Banu, a board of director & blogger of Adhunika.

Sharmin holds a BS in Computer Science & Engineering from BUET, MS in Computer Science & Applications from Virginia Tech. She came to US for her Masters in 1997. She has been working with Microsoft for over 7 years & is a SDET lead. She is married and a proud mother of 5 year old daughter.

An informal exchange of ideas on technology to empower women

Hosted by Friends of Adhunika

DATE: Oct 21, Tuesday

LOCATION: Room # 305 (3rd Floor Russell Hall), Teachers College, Columbia University

525 West 120th street
New York - NY - 10027

TIME: 6:30-8:00 pm

ADMISSION: FREE for Friends of Adhunika

RSVP: events@adhunika.org

Bring a Valid ID to enter the building. Light refreshment will be served.

From Our Archive: The following article is written by our regural participant Sabrin Chowdhury.

“The day my boyfriend started degrading me,
I held back my tears and remained silent.
The day my boyfriend started brutally abusing me,
I held back my tears and remained silent.
But the day my boyfriend looked at me and stated matter of factly ˜I’m sorry I hurt you but it’s your fault. You must always do something to instigate me,”
I let the tears flow from the depths of my soul and knew I could no longer remain silent.”
~ Survivor

Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abusive behavior which keeps one partner in a position of power over the other partner through the use of fear, intimidation, and control. But in reality it is so much more and a much larger problem then we realize.

Studies show that up to 3 million women are physically abused annually by intimate partners in the United States. However, the numbers seem worse for the South Asian community in the U.S, where approximately 41% of women are physically and/or sexually abused in some way by their current male partners in their lifetime. Unfortunately, the real percentage may be higher as many South Asian women are less likely to categorize various interactions as domestic violence, or are afraid or prevented from reporting such incidents. (more…)

Few ideas have fascinated me as much as one of the topics we discussed that day. One of my friends who have always been the prettiest in the group, doing fairly well academically told me that she was suspicious of her husband’s loyalty. Her husband, a popular personality in the media has gone abroad and will be staying there for a while and she was suspecting he might break the golden rule of any marriage. This was a love marriage were both of them knew each other for several years before the wedding and still is deeply in love with each other. Surprised I pondered on the topic and found out that another friend of mine also had the same feeling, that given the opportunity they think any man will cheat on his wife even if he is in love with the wife, possibly a one night’s stand I proposed. Unfortunately my friends disagreed, their claim was that every man wishes to have an extra marital affair, not all of them get a chance to do it but those who do will definitely go for it for an extended time even. Then my 1^st friend lets me know she was skeptical about it even before she married her husband that he might at some point get involved with another woman romantically/physically and she sort of has thought of the steps she will take when such a thing occurs. (more…)

Recently the buzz on the media is the two-year celebration of 400 Years of Capital City Dhaka, Bangladesh, we wanted to post a thought provoking article from our readers, Enjoy!

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By now many of us have watched Al Gore starred movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘; many of us have known about the danger of global warming. We know how quickly the glaciers in the North Pole are melting raising the sea level, that if the sea level rises, Bangladesh will be one of the most vulnerable areas on earth that can be submerged under water by year 2025.

However, in the context of Bangladesh, environmental pollution is already so severe that the bigger picture of global warming scenario may seem far away. For Bangladesh, it is not just global warming; we are polluting our own environment everyday. Especially for Dhaka, our Capital - the City that we are so proud of, we are polluting its air, water, soil/land; not to mention noise pollution and light pollution- all due to our lack of proper planning, and due to our lack of sensitivity towards saving the environment. There are so many aspects of this issue that here with this discussion we can try to focus only on what we can do at our end to protect our own environment.

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This article is written by our guest blogger Fariha Sarwat. This has been published earlier in Unheard Voices Blog.-Admin

The Newage front-page reports that among other things in Bangladesh, the state of gender-based violence at the work place is also deteriorating. Big surprise! The news comes as a result of a survey conducted by the Social Science Research Council of the Planning Commission, under Ministry of Finance and Planning. The news report by BSS states that -˜92.3 per cent working women of urban areas and 88.3 per cent of rural areas have been badly treated by various types of violence by their male counterparts”. Therefore, on an average, 90% of all women suffer from gender violence at their workplaces. I honestly can’t say that I am surprised.

The study reports that - ˜huge number of adolescent girls and women were being sexually abused in their workplace but it was the most hidden and underreported from violence as there is a tendency to deny the incident.” Almost all the women I know, including self and FnF and those I have worked with, have complained about facing gender-violence of some form or other at their workplace. It’s a malice we are all equally aware of, but powerless against. Even this report”for all it’s gravity and accuracy”is going to be well received, but after being discussed, debated and dissected, will be forgotten and our fates will remain the same. Perhaps, women who are violated every day have already lost faith in our institutions, laws and elders and their ability to protect us. Perhaps, it’s because most people still don’t even understand what constitutes gender-violence/sexual harassment, not even the victims themselves. Perhaps, it’s because we’ve all somehow contributed in making things worse for us by encouraging violence in our silences. Perhaps because we’ve become complacent about this and now choose to take it in our stride”after all, independent, successful women who’re trying to make it in a man’s world should just learn to ˜deal with it” and not complain (because men tell us they don’t).

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By Farzana Chowdhury, Bindu, member of Adhunika.

It seems like nowadays everyone wants to emigrate somewhere else from Bangladesh. Like me a lot of Bangladeshis are immigrating to Canada. When I go back home to Bangladesh, my friends and family tell me that I am far better off living in Canada than I would be living in Bangladesh. When I ask my friends or family members why they want to emigrate to Canada or North America, the answer is usually, to provide a better life for their children, to give them a secure environment and also for themselves. When I ask myself this question, why I moved to the States and subsequently to Canada, my answer is different. I got married and moved to the States where my husband was a student. Truly, North America never attracted me in the way it attracts many people back home, I loved living in Bangladesh, and I had a wonderful career. (more…)

By Moutushi Islam & Tonima Das.

Nila, her husband and their two years old daughter have landed in the United States of America, with the dream and hope for a new life of success, stability, and solvency. However, the reality speaks differently. All they have encountered are a very new culture, different climate, and a range of foreign foods. Nothing is similar to home. Nothing gives the comfort of the home they left miles away.

During this process of settling down, Nila and her husband have started looking for a regular income - a first step to a secured life in the US. They look forward to a decent job, something better than what they have done in Bangladesh. While her husband looks for a full time job Nila hopes to get a “good” job with the “green card” in her hand. With a graduate degree and months long working experience as a teacher in Bangladesh Nila expects either a teaching opportunity or may be a part time position in a bank while she can also look after her toddler. Unfortunately the “green card” turns out to be a mere entry pass to the US and does not ensure a regular job in this foreign land. For many immigrants, the dream of having a stable income usually turns into a dreadful journey of doing ‘odd job’ at ‘odd hours’. Besides, many other daily needs like a car to commute or a driving license gets into the way and stops one to take up a good job in the US. In addition, the primary information for getting training and starting a job are essential and many of them who come here for the first time are not aware of those needs. (more…)