As the clock hit midnight, the women held their flame torches aloft and marched into the Dhaka night. “The people have given their blood, now we want equality,” they shouted above the roar of the traffic.
For many in Bangladesh, the past few weeks have been a cause for jubilation. The first free and fair elections in 17 years have been promised for Thursday, after the toppling of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led uprising in August 2024 in which more than 1,000 people died.
Opposition figures long persecuted and jailed are now running as candidates, freely holding rallies for the first time in years. The former prime minister is languishing in exile in India and facing a death sentence for crimes against humanity in Bangladesh, and her Awami League party is banned from contesting the election.
Women marched in Dhaka at midnight
Yet for swathes of women in the country, including those who were at the forefront of the revolution, the hope of the election has become tinged with disappointment and fear amid a resurgence of regressive Islamist politics that it is feared will impinge upon women’s rights in society and the workplace, and a dearth of female candidates in the running.
“This was meant to be an election representing chang
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