Right activists yesterday urged the government to form a separate ministry and commission to safeguard the rights of indigenous people across the country in the wake of constant attack on their ancestral land.

Although the rate of child marriage in Bangladesh has dropped by 40 percent since independence, 13 million girls in the country are still married off before they are 15, mostly at the compulsion of family or society. 

Thirteen environmentalists, rights activists and prominent citizens have issued a letter to Sylhet divisional commissioner, demanding protection of the ancestral and customary land of the Khasi people living in Daluchhara and Belkuma Khasiapunji, located in the Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar.

The minimum wage board for tea workers, a government-led tripartite body, have continued the 170-year-long “tradition” of depriving workers by recommending an unfair wage structure that conflict with existing laws, said speakers at a virtual dialogue yesterday.

A recent study on the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on child marriage situation in Cox’s Bazar found that its rates have increased significantly in the district since March 2021, with the highest increase of 82 percent in Eidgaon upazila.

“I don’t believe that expressing an opinion can be considered a crime. I still believe in freedom of speech.”

Around 57 percent tea garden residents still defecate out in the open, speakers said at a press meeting yesterday. They said this is due to cost-constraints, negligence from tea garden authorities, and lack of space inside households.

Jhuman Das is still in jail, a day after the High Court granted him bail, as the order is yet to reach Sunamganj.

For the last 20 years, Chinami Madraji has been working at a tea garden in Moulvibazar. Rain or shine, the 35-year-old mother of five works for eight to 10 hours a day.

One-year-old Ishan Das Shoumya was all smiles as he played on the bed, but his mother Sweety Rani Das could not fight back the tears as she spoke about the nightmare that was the last six months.

A US congressional body, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, yesterday held a virtual briefing on the role of law enforcement agencies in cases of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh.

Guernica 37, human rights-focused international justice chamber, has called on the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to slap sanctions on nine current and former senior officers of Rab for their alleged involvement in human rights abuses and corrupt practices.

Overcrowding with little privacy, substandard beddings, sanitation and weak healthcare facilities have turned prisons in South Asian countries into chambers of perpetual torment rather than places of reform and correction, rights activists of the region have said.

Nine rights organisations yesterday condemned and expressed concern over repeated incidents of violence on Garo and Khasia communities to evict them from their land in Moulvibazar’s Kulaura upazila.

Some residents of Old Dhaka today staged a demonstration, with larvae of Aedes mosquito, in front of Nagar Bhaban in Dhaka today.

Fatema Begum of Kalyanpur slum, locally known as the “Kalyanpur Pora Bosti”, got married to Md Mohsin in March, this year.

Leaders of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports yesterday urged the government to fully implement the Phulbari contract, which bans open-pit mining, and expel Asia Energy to protect the country's mineral resources.

Planning and budgeting should be done by keeping gender in mind to ensure equality and equity for the country’s women tea-garden workers, said speakers at a webinar yesterday.

Activists of Adivasi Chhatra Sangram Parishad yesterday demanded a separate human rights commission to prevent “oppression against indigenous women”.

Activists of Adivasi Chhatra Sangram Parishad today demanded a separate human rights commission to prevent “oppression against indigenous women”.