Lower thirds:
0:03  Report by / Zobaer Ahmed
0:16  Sumaiya Alam Lira / BNP female student activist
0:42   Zobaer Ahmed / DW Correspondent
1:40  Taslima Akhter / Parliamentary candidate
2:35  Shireen Pervin Huq, Women´s rights activist
  
Script:
00:02 
VO  
Sumaiya Alam Lira is campaigning for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the BNP. It’s the party which gave the country its first woman Prime Minister. Lira says representation is important.    
00:15
SOT – SUMAIYA ALAM LIRA, BNP FEMALE STUDENT ACTIVIST:   
+++More women are going to schools, colleges, and universities today because women were in leadership positions over the past decades. I’m not sure I would be standing here, speaking to you, if only men had held those positions.+++  
00:31
VO  
Lira´s ambitions are still taking shape. But despite its history, Bangladesh’s political structure offers little encouragement to women.      
00:42
PTC 
+++For 35 years, women held the very top positions of Bangladeshi political power.  Women were prime ministers, party chiefs, and behind-the-scenes power brokers.  But now, for the first time in decades, no major party is being led into the election by a woman.+++      
00:57
VO  
Despite that history, the issue of women’s representation is structural and chronic. Decades of women-led governments improved education and health but did little for women’s political power.  
Women have historically held less than one in five parliamentary seats, and many of those are reserved and filled by party nomination.  In direct contests, women usually make up less than five percent of candidates, a gap that reform promises after the uprising have failed to close.
01:29    
This failure frustrates Taslima Akhter, a candidate from the Gonoshonghoti Andolon, a party with progressive ideas. 
01:39
SOT- Taslima Akhter, Parliamentary candidate
+++During the uprising, we fought against fasc ism, but we did not break free from its culture. We still haven’t reached a point where the state or political parties see women and men as equals. Nominating more women candidates could have been a powerful answer to that. But it didn’t happen this time. Maybe some women are afraid. And the way political parties have failed to nominate us has left many of us feeling disappointed.    +++  
02:08
VO  
The imbalance is compounded by another reality: Nearly a third of women candidates are related to male political leaders, rather than being independent political actors. On top of that, Islamists have become a major force in this election – and they who are against woman leadership.
02:26
Shireen Pervin Huq recently led the interim government´s reform commission on women’s issues.  
02: 34
SOT- Shireen Pervin Huq, Women´s rights activist 
+++In the country 51% percent are women. So, their broader representation is a must. But if we expect that more women in the parliament means everything will change fundamentally, that might not be the case. But more visibility of women and them being part of different parliamentary committees is very important. +++     
03:09
VO 
Back on campus, Lira knows she has to take it one step at a time. She hopes the path ahead will be wider for women like her – and those who follow.
END
03:25