Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Good morning. Thank you so very much to all the members of the subcommittee for their recognition of our work at BLAST. We're all really honoured by this and I want to thank you very much. I'm just one of 2,500 or more lawyers practising across the country in Bangladesh who are

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much for raising that point. I think that the issue of closing space in our context is really critical for all human rights defenders of all genders. The issue of the judiciary is quite difficult for me to answer because we have rather stringent contempt laws. Be

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Your point is spot-on. I think the rotten problem is there isn't enough of anything. In terms of the urban scenario, Bangladesh is rapidly urbanizing. Dhaka, our capital, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. The issue is that many people still live in informal settl

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think it has very significantly. We have very extensive mobile phone penetration in Bangladesh and we're using mobile technology now to provide advice and information, particularly, for example, to workers around their rights in the workplace. We're now developing new apps on h

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the issue of distance is much greater, in terms of getting in to places where there is actual service provision, but in rural areas we have had many development organizations working. One of the world's largest development organizations, BRAC, with whom we work also, is r

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think there are already lessons from Canada concerning the ways women-friendly services have been run. There are also many lessons not only in terms of practice but particularly in terms of jurisprudence. The Supreme Court of Canada has set down a number of landmark decisions t

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. I think it's a rather different situation in Bangladesh. We don't really have the same kind of situation in relation to conversions or forced conversions en masse. In relation to child early and forced marriage, I think that is a very serious problem in Bangladesh. However

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, it's definitely a global challenge, and that's why we are grateful that you are speaking to these issues as we are not able to do ourselves domestically. I think we have to focus on tolerance, particularly as women human rights defenders. It's very problematic that in some

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I should explain that in the Bangladesh context we have had many development initiatives. We have a government-run multi-sexual program on addressing violence against women that has victim support centres from the police, one-stop crisis centres in our medical hospitals, and very

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. I was just going to talk about what further initiatives we need to take. I think it's clear we need standards and structures. It's not enough to have policies. We need to make those actually work. We need to monitor and track the policies that we need to put in place. It's

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, let me just do that. Restrictions, for example, on speech, digital security, NGOs operating, those are the kinds of restrictions that women human rights defenders, as do men, are also facing. Thank you.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Great. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the opportunity to provide a statement to you, in connection with your study on women as human rights defenders, which is sorely needed, I think, at this point. My statement is based on my experiences wit