00:00Sumay Alun Lira is campaigning for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the BNP.
00:05It's the party which gave the country its first woman prime minister.
00:10Lira says representation is important.
00:14More women are going to schools, colleges and universities today
00:18because women were in leadership positions over the past decades.
00:22I'm not sure I would be standing here speaking to you
00:26if only men had held those positions.
00:30Lira's ambitions are still taking shape.
00:33But despite its history, Bangladesh's political structure offers little encouragement to women.
00:40For 35 years, women led the top positions in Bangladeshi political power.
00:45There were prime ministers, party chiefs and behind-the-scenes power brokers.
00:49But now, for the first time in decades, no major party is being led into the election by a woman.
00:55Despite that history, the issue of women's representation is structural and chronic.
01:02Decades of women led government's improved education and health,
01:06but did little for women's political power.
01:09Women have historically held less than one in five parliamentary seats,
01:14and many of those are reserved and filled by party nomination.
01:17In direct contests, women usually make up less than 5% of candidates,
01:23and a gap that reform promises after the uprising have failed to close.
01:28This failure frustrates Taslim Akhtar,
01:31a candidate from the Gono Shonghuti Andolan,
01:34a party with progressive ideas.
01:36During the uprising, we fought against fascism,
01:42but we did not break free from its culture.
01:44We still haven't reached a point where the state or political parties
01:48see women and men as equals.
01:51Nominating more women candidates could have a powerful answer to that.
01:55But it didn't happen this time.
01:57Many women are afraid.
01:59And the way political parties have failed to nominate us
02:02has left many of us feeling disappointed.
02:06The imbalance is compounded by another reality.
02:11Nearly a third of women candidates are related to male political leaders
02:15rather than being independent political actors.
02:18On top of that, Islamists have become a major force in this election,
02:23and they are against women leadership.
02:26Shirin Parveen-Hawk recently led the interim government's
02:29reform commission on women's issues.
02:31In this country, 51% are women.
02:40So their broader representation is a must.
02:44But if we expect that more women in the parliament
02:47means everything will change fundamentally,
02:50that might not be the case.
02:53But more visibility of women and them being part of different parliamentary committees
03:00is very important.
03:05Back on campus, Lira knows she has to take it one step at a time.
03:13She hopes the path ahead will be wider for women like her
03:18and those who follow.
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