Although women are increasingly participating in almost all sectors of the country, the obstacles they face are still there.

We observed this year's International Women's Day on March 8 as we did in the past years. The day before, a number of girls and women, publicly alleged that they had been teased, groped and sexually harassed at various points of Dhaka in separate incidents. In addition, we are yet to eliminate instances of violence against women. Even in this age, a lot of girls regularly become victims of child marriage and have to drop out from schools at an early age.

The government has recently launched a hotline for girls to report if anything unwanted happens to them, but we still don't know how effective this is. Women have to come forward and speak up about the constraints, inequality and obstacles they face everyday and we need to ensure that their voices are listened to.

Md Tarek Aziz Bappi, Dhaka University