Women face more barriers to accessing information

The Daily Star‎‎‎: Bangladesh: Tuesday, May 31, 2016.

Illiteracy, lack of awareness about where to go and how to ask for information, cultural constraints, and lack of time, mobility and security impede women from exercising their Right to Information (RTI).

A study jointly conducted by The Carter Center, a US based not-for-profit nongovernmental organisation founded by former US president Jimmy Carter, and rights organisation Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), showed women do not get the same facilities as men while seeking government-held information in Bangladesh.

Carried out in six districts, Dhaka, Khagrachhari, Khulna, Rangpur, Rajshahi and Sylhet, in 2015, the research findings were published in a report titled “Women and the Right of Access to Information in Bangladesh”.

The report was launched yesterday morning at the capital's Six Seasons Hotel in Gulshan.

Laura Neuman, director, Global Access to Information Program of The Carter Center, presented the report findings and highlights.

She said studies carried out in Liberia and Guatemala showed existence of similar inequity in the exercise of right to information between men and women.

The study was based on 550 interviews of experts, community leaders including teachers, business persons, religious leaders, public agency employees and citizens entering government offices for information or services, and observations of some 49 government offices.

Among the 128 community leaders interviewed, 89.8 percent identified illiteracy as a major barrier for women, while 81.2 percent perceived women's lack of awareness about how or where to go for information, as a key obstacle.

Other crucial impediments identified by community leaders include family members, who do not support women to go out for information, unfriendly mindset of government or RTI officials towards women, women's fear of reprisals for asking information, and concerns about mobility and safety of getting to the public offices.

The study also showed that community leaders' opined information related to education, land-property, and employment as the most valuable for women's economic empowerment.

Another finding revealed that women's access to information varies with age. Public office employees, in their interviews commented that younger women, who are likely to be more educated, seek more information related to training and personal development opportunities.

The elderly women, on the other hand, are more interested in obtaining information on social services, remarked government officials in their interviews.

"We need to work with the government, civil society bodies and information commission to find out how we can mitigate the obstacles faced by women in accessing information, as revealed by the study," said Shaheen Anam, executive director of MJF.

Dr Md Golam Rahman, chief information commissioner, Information Commission, Bangladesh, said that although more people are using the RTI ACT enacted in 2009, the application for information is much lower in relation to the country's population.

He stressed the need for a comprehensive study on how people are accessing information and what barriers are faced by both men and women in doing so across the country.