Bangladesh not conservative: Arthur Erken
Nurul Islam Hasib, bdnews24.com
Published: 2013-06-14 04:33:08.0 GMT Updated: 2013-06-14 04:33:49.0 GMT
“Bangladesh is not conservative”, the outgoing UNFPA representative Arthur Erken found out during his six years mission in Dhaka, but yet he had to struggle to make the policymakers understand this basic fact.
“I found people very pragmatic but often heard (from policymakers) we are a conservative country,” he said recalling his days in Dhaka during an interview to bdnews24.com.
The UN representative will leave Bangladesh this month.
He said Bangladesh had been ‘rapidly’ urbanised and that has brought socio-cultural changes with the growing use of internet, mobile by the young generation who comprise the largest chunk of the populations.
“I see here women in the garment industries....They are on the streets. Young people sitting on the benches holding hands. This is not the Bangladesh of your mother’s, certainly not of your grandmother’s. This is the Bangladesh of the day”.
But when he talked about adolescents’ sexual problems, reproductive health and information services, he often encountered policymakers saying: “This is not really Bangladesh’s culture”.
“I was saying, are your kids’ not Bangladeshi culture? You raise them. These are Bangladeshi kids. How can you say it’s not Bangladeshi culture? Who is the custodian of culture? “Of course things are changing.....This is also Bangladesh and it’s rapidly changing.”
Stating that his “hardest job” was to make the policymakers realise what is happening in Bangladesh, Arthur Erken pointed out “All young people have access to internet, you tube, facebook. Even in rural areas everyone has telephones, they see televisions. The rapid socio-cultural transformation is really fascinating”.
“I see it. I am not a Bengali to tell policymakers don’t be bogged down by preconceived notions. Try to see what’s happening around you and open your eyes”.
He said young generation as the largest group would driver Bangladesh’s economy. “And they will determine the new culture of Bangladesh and not their parents,” he said.
The Shahbagh movement of the young generation ‘fascinated’ him, as to him it was the first sign of young people hitting the street to tell ‘look we don’t like it’.
“Ultimately young people will start determining the politics and political parties have to listen to them”.
He said Bangladesh was a low fertility country and had been ‘optimistic’ to say that by 2015 the country would achieve replacement level fertility.
But he advised the family planning department forget about “one size fit all”.
“In 1970s it was right thing to go door-to-door. But now if you ask anyone how many children you want, I can guarantee you majority would say they want two children.
“But still there are pockets in the country where the average is much higher than the national average.
“Sylhet and Chittagong are notorious for that so you spend money there, don’t spend elsewhere. You don’t need to recruit people in Khulna where fertility rate is 1.9, send them to Sunamgang where it is needed”.
He, however, found that despite the economic growth and the growth of middle class in Bangladesh, on an average half of the girls marry by the age of 16, which has negative implications on their health and well-being.
“With the growing middle-class someone might think the average age for marrying off girls might have gone up. But actually it is not.
“It was something that has not been changed. But the peculiar thing I heard is that the marriageable age is linked to dowry and security issues”.
“Being older and more educated means parents will need to dole out more dowry than for a younger and uneducated girl.
“If you are a poor farmer, it’s a huge incentive to marry your daughter off quickly. You cannot afford her marry at 20 when you have to pay more to find a suitable husband.”
“To me it’s weird situation and it does not match with the rest of the development”.
He said “though dowry is illegal, it is sometimes a matter of prestige for bride’s family”.
“We think upper class people are more liberal and more enlightened. But the issue of girls and her protection and sexuality is still very strong so they marry their daughter off early”.
But he found if women are economically active they marry late.
“I was stuck by the story in the Savar tragedy that many of the girls were the bread earners of their families, which was unthinkable even 20 or 30 years ago.
He, however, noticed that Bangladeshi girls were not coming in the service-sectors like hotels.
The UNFPA representative said he had spent ‘a professionally wonderful time’ in Dhaka.
“I tell my colleague if you work with UNFPA you actually have to tour Bangladesh because everything we deal with like maternal health, gender, violence against women are here.
“And it’s being dealt by the government and the people.”
) all in name of liberalism. We Muslims like smart businessman trying to prevent civilization from chaos & destruction. Look at the history after every civilization reached a certain point of "Liberalization" it got destroyed. Better being conservative than dead 
