Women's Day Today: Calls grow for rights, justice, safety
International Women’s Day 2026 is being observed today across the world under the theme ‘Right, Justice, Action For All Women and Girls’ highlighting the urgent need to ensure equality, safety, and legal protection for women and girls.
Experts say ensuring legal identity through birth and death registration is a crucial step in safeguarding women’s rights. Without official documentation, women and girls often face barriers in accessing education, healthcare, social protection, and legal justice. They note that strengthening birth and death registration laws can play a vital role in protecting women’s rights and ensuring access to services and legal protection.
Birth registration is particularly important for the protection of girls. Without it, proving age becomes difficult, making it harder to prevent child marriage.
Early marriage often leads to early motherhood, interrupts girls’ education, and exposes them to higher risks of violence and exploitation.
Lack of registration can also increase vulnerability to human trafficking and hazardous labour.
Similarly, the absence of death registration can create complications after a woman’s death, particularly regarding property and inheritance rights, often leading to disputes among family members.
Despite progress in awareness, violence against women continues to be a major global concern. Studies show that nearly one in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence at least once in her lifetime, most often perpetrated by an intimate partner.
From sexual and reproductive health to mental health, noncommunicable diseases, ageing, and access to healthcare, women face unique and often overlooked challenges influenced by social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors. Recent incidents in Bangladesh have also renewed concern among rights activists.
Data from the human rights organization Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) shows that violence against women remains widespread. In January alone this year, ASK recorded 31 incidents of domestic violence, 35 rapes, two cases of sexual harassment, and six incidents related to child marriage and marital violence involving women.
Rights groups say many such incidents, both reported and unreported, violate several provisions of the Constitution of Bangladesh, including Article 27 (equality before the law), Article 28 (prohibition of discrimination), Article 31 (right to protection of the law), and Article 32 (right to life and personal liberty).
They also contradict existing laws such as the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025, and international commitments including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Child Sexual Abuse in Bangladesh:
Despite recent legal reforms, including the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance 2025, cases regarding sexual violence against women and children continue to rise, reflecting systemic failures in law enforcement and social protection.
The ordinance introduced special tribunals for child rape cases, redefined consent and age limits, and mandated 90-day trial timelines.
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP) data also highlights the alarming prevalence of sexual violence. In March 2025 alone, 183 cases of violence against women and children were reported. Many victims are subjected to abuse at home, school, or in public spaces, and informal village arbitration (salish) often bypasses legal action, leaving survivors unprotected.
Key Incidents
Sitakunda, March 2026:
A seven-year-old girl was found murdered after an attempted sexual assault in Sitakunda Eco Park. Police reports indicated that the perpetrator attempted to sexually assault the girl before killing her. This case exposed serious shortcomings in community and law enforcement protection mechanisms, as neighbors and relatives were unable to intervene in time.
Narsingdi, Feb 2026:
A 15-year-old girl was abducted and gang-raped by multiple perpetrators. Her family had initially attempted to take her to the police, but local pressure and informal settlements (salish) forced them to compromise. Two weeks later, the girl was abducted and killed while being moved to a relative’s house for safety.
As International Women’s Day is observed, activists and organisations are urging stronger legal enforcement, improved protection mechanisms, and effective policy measures to ensure safety, justice, and equal rights for all women and girls.
