Let us never forget that this week we have witnessed misery. Haiti is a blanket reminder of all that we are and shall always be. Indeed, we now have reason to celebrate that Bangladesh is no longer immiserated– it is poverty stricken. Bangladeshis suffer from sheer adverse facts on the ground; they do not suffer from an unbroken gray emptiness which no power but providence can fill.
Bangladesh has much to mark a new era in its coagulating history. Bangladesh is in the forefront of the women’s global economic equality movement. The micro-loans pioneered by Dr. Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank have empowered Bangladeshi women to set up businesses for themselves, enterprises that have helped many thousands of women up and out of the hearth, into a blinkered future. Opportunities in any of these humble businesses are staid. The profit margin will never buy the newest couture from Bergdorf. But there is a growing sense that the market can withstand strong women who are more than just mothers, daughters and wives. Inter-community economic equality is becoming a real, lived phenomenon in Bangladesh.
However, intra-household equality is on the wane, if ever it existed as more than a specter within a certain moneyed class. Incidents of violence perpetrated on women are legion, but ,perhaps, none are more jarring than the commonly related story of a woman scarred for life by having hydrochloric acid thrown on her face. This disturbing story is the concern of the shocking piece of journalism you will find below.
I encourage you to watch the following video and hope that you will take the time to watch the second part as well.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/tFVbHzvGNPw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Please find below the original piece as it aired on Al Jazeera.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/101east/2009/12/200912299411380785.html
