Create awareness on divorce issues

Speakers at a symposium yesterday stressed the need for making women aware on divorce-related issues to help ensure women empowerment as husbands under the existing laws "have more authority" compared to wives.

They also emphasised updating the prevailing laws.

The Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (Bilia) organised the symposium "Revisiting Divorce and Other Related Issues" in its auditorium at the capital's Dhanmondi.

When presenting his keynote paper, Shaikh Md Mujahid Ul Islam, additional chief judicial magistrate of Shariatpur, said after divorce questions arise as to how a woman will handle her future, who will be the custodian of her children, and how the dower money will be realised. He added that the divorce-related issues should be directly handled through the judicial system.

Eminent jurist Shahdeen Malik said the country as a whole has a negative attitude towards the institution of marriage.

"There is no other society where you will be able to get married in the morning…and pronounce divorce in the afternoon," he added.

"We must think that marriage is not a toy institution," Malik mentioned. 

Taslima Yasmin, assistant professor of law department at Dhaka University, said, "A law needs to be enacted, according to which husbands must pay due compensation to wives in an arbitrary divorce."

Among others, Bilia research officer Toufiqul Islam spoke at the programme with Prof Shahnaz Huda of the department in the chair.