Invisible inequality: Why property, power remain out of women’s reach

Infographics: TBS

Highlights

• Women's land ownership claims often disregarded
• Only 4% landowners, majority still excluded
• Denying women property is denying them power
• Without property, protection remains elusive
• Inheritance laws reinforce deep-rooted inequality
• Violence tied to land ownership
• Shalish overrides courts, justice denied
• Girls married young, denied inheritance
• Reserved seats in Jatiya Sangshad inflate political inclusion
• Digital divide reinforces gender inequality
• Yet this crisis remains absent from national policy agendas

In Bangladesh today, women's rights exist as a painful paradox: they are enshrined in speeches, policies, and global indices – yet routinely denied in law, in culture, and in the lived experience of millions.

It is easy to point to women powering the garment sector, leading ministries, or topping literacy charts. But these visible achievements often obscure a more brutal and invisible truth: most Bangladeshi women still do not own anything – not land, not wealth, not even decisions over their own bodies. And because they own nothing, they are routinely denied everything.

According to Dr Mariha Tahsin, a policy analyst and visiting research fellow at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), property rights are perhaps the most urgent and yet most overlooked issue facing women today. Public discussion on the subject rarely goes beyond the unequal inheritance laws that grant daughters only half the share of sons. But the inequity runs far deeper.

"What happens to a woman's claim to her husband's property?" she asks. "Does a divorced woman have the right to remain in her marital home? Can a rural wife till land she has worked on for decades without being evicted by in-laws? More often than not, the answer is no."

Despite constitutional guarantees and a 2025 government commission recommending uniform family laws, women in Bangladesh are still systematically stripped of their claims to property.

Only 4% of landowners are women. Wives are frequently excluded altogether. Widows are pressured to forfeit their inheritance. Divorce rarely results in fair settlements. Informal village shalish systems often override formal legal rights, particularly in rural areas.

In a country where land ownership remains the cornerstone of economic security, mobility, and dignity, Dr Tahsin argues, denying women property is tantamount to denying them power.

"This imbalance has wide-ranging consequences. From business opportunities to bank loans, from divorce settlements to old-age security – a woman without property is a woman without protection."

Badabon Sangho, a women's rights organisation, is working to establish women's rights to land and natural resources.

Mamun Ur Rashid, mentioned that in a study (conducted by Badabon Sangho in 12 districts), "74% of women landowners received land from inheritance, 52.6% of the women face challenges related to land ownership due to a lack of proper information about their land, 33.20% women has been facing at least one type/forms of gender-based violence (GBV) in relation with land ownership, 86% of women don't have land literacy". 

He also mentioned that Badabon Sangho has been working with grassroots women to educate them on land documentation so that they can explain their rights and claim it as well. There is both silent and open gender-based violence against women due to land ownership. 

It is no coincidence that women remain the most impoverished segment of the population. Property has become the quietest and most efficient way of locking them out of economic life, and yet this crisis remains almost entirely absent from national policy agendas.

But the denial of property feeds into broader cycles of vulnerability. Girls are married off young because families see no value in educating someone who will never inherit. Women remain in abusive marriages because they have nowhere to go. Widows become destitute overnight because they have no fallback assets.

And so, other rights fall like dominoes. 

In the workplace, women face wage discrimination and widespread harassment, especially in the garment sector, where four million women sustain the economy but receive little protection in return. 

In politics, women's participation remains largely symbolic, confined to reserved seats and a handful of high-profile roles that obscure their marginalisation in real decision-making. Online, men continue to dominate access to digital platforms and resources. In 2025, only 24% of women were active mobile internet users compared to 37% of men.

Violence against women, too, remains widespread and underreported. A 2024-2025 UNFPA-BBS survey found that 70% of Bangladeshi women have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime. Most never tell anyone. 

The reasons are predictable: legal aid is weak, police responses are often dismissive, and the courts are slow, expensive, and traumatising. Marital rape, too, remains legal. The average cost of pursuing justice is also insurmountable for most survivors.

And yet, despite this grim reality, an illusion of progress continues to shape public perception. Bangladesh ranked 24th in the 2025 Global Gender Gap Index, a position that appears impressive until closely examined. Political representation is inflated by reserved quotas. 

Literacy rates mask the reality of widespread child marriage, still affecting 51% of girls under 18. And while the national gender budget reached a record Tk175,350 crore in FY2023-24, much of it funds conferences and awareness campaigns, not legal reform or grassroots support systems.

Zeenat Ara Haque, a prominent women's rights activist and chief executive officer of We Can, believes that despite the grand rhetoric surrounding women's development in Bangladesh, the grim realities on the ground persist because women's rights are ultimately a political issue.

They are intrinsically tied to the stability of the state and the clarity of its policy commitments. According to her, the overall condition of the Bangladeshi state is reflected in the persistent denial of women's rights.

"We have no coherent strategic plan when it comes to securing women's rights – just like many other key national issues," she said. "Over the years, some positive steps have indeed been taken, but they were mostly scattered and never properly implemented at the grassroots level. 

"Meanwhile, token gestures, like appointing women to high-profile posts through quotas, having a female Speaker, a couple of female ministers, or MPs in reserved seats, have created a façade of progress. Behind this façade, the real condition of ordinary women remains dire."

She further noted that even under the current caretaker administration, there is little hope for any real improvement in the situation of women. 

"The Women's Reform Commission may have made some ambitious recommendations," she said, "but their implementation seems unlikely. Many within the government itself are opposed to these reforms – they are misogynistic and regressive in their thinking. 

"The government, despite knowing this, failed to initiate any consultation or build consensus ahead of the commission's report. And after the report was released, it stayed silent amid the growing controversy. That silence has all but doomed the commission's chances of success," she added.

In a country where laws are shaped by political will and sustained by social consensus, the silence speaks volumes.

Until women's rights are seen not as charity, not as symbolism, but as foundational to the nation's future, the paradox will continue: of progress without power, of inclusion without agency, of women celebrated in theory – and abandoned in life.

This article has been produced in association with Badabon Sangho.