BARHIS AND FAMILIES IN BANGLADESH
Family and kinship have been the core of social life in Bangladesh for a long time. The most common unit is the patrilineally-related extended family living in a household called a bari. A bari is composed of a husband and wife, their unmarried children, and their adult sons with their wives and children. Grandparents also may be present, as well as patrilineally-related brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
A family group residing in a bari would function as the basic unit of economic endeavor, landholding, and social identity. In the eyes of rural people, the chula defined the effective household — an extended family exploiting jointly held property and being fed from a jointly operated kitchen. A bari might consist of one or more such functional households, depending on the circumstances of family relationship. Married sons generally lived in their parents' household during the father's lifetime. Although sons usually built separate houses for their nuclear families, they remained under their fathers' authority, and wives under their mothers-in-law's authority. The death of the father usually precipitated the separation of adult brothers into their own households. Such a split generally caused little change in the physical layout of the bari, however. Families at different stages of the cycle would display different configurations of household membership. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: The oldest man is the authority figure, although the oldest woman may exert considerable authority within the household. A bari in rural areas is composed of three or four houses which face each other to form a square courtyard in which common tasks are done. Food supplies often are shared, and young couples must contribute their earnings to the household head. Cooking, however, often is done within the constituent nuclear family units. [Source:“Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
In an article on Bangladeshi village life, Kamran Nahar wrote: “ Generally father is the head of the family and children have to obey their parents and to carry out their orders. In joint family, grand-father, father, uncles and elder son took all important decision. They dominated women in every sphere of life. Women didn’t know what freedom really meant. Though they worked hard at home all day long, husbands beat them for trifle matters. Since most girls were illiterate or little literate, they thought it right to obey husbands blindly as the society taught them for men’s benefit. Now, since people have been educated enough and nuclear families are rising irresistibly, the situation has somewhat changed, but not so much changed as expected to be. Still man, the head of the family, dominates all, even his sons too. Though men have given importance to women to some extent, their attitudes to dominate them are still present like before. Wives are still the toys of men’s wish. Their major duties are bound by men in cooking and rearing children. In the society, the wealthy and the aristocrat families influence upon the lower class. The older ones think that their orders are inviolable, that the juniors have to carry out without any question, and the juniors use to obey them. However, in these days, the older are beginning to give importance to the opinions of the junior too. [Source: “Bangladesh Culture: A Study of the South Para of Village ‘Silimpur’” by Kamrun Nahar, September 2, 2006]
Bengali Families
Kin groups revolve around homestead-based patrilineal extended families, whose members jointly own the homestead land. An extended family typically has a male head and consists of his wife, married son and their families, unmarried children and grandchildren and other dependants. These homestead extended families are divided into segments called paribars, consisting of men, their wives children and other dependents. Unity among the extended families is expressed through the sharing of a kitchen or hearth and the sharing of ownership and control of land.
It is common for older siblings to take care of younger siblings. As they grow older, the activities of girls is restricted and they are expected to stay close to home. Brothers take care of their sisters if they become widowed or divorced.
Bengalis employ several kinship terms, that are found in Urdu and have been derived from Arabic or Persian. Families, extended families and clans have traditionally been very important. Individuals often identify themselves as members of these an other groups rather than as individuals.
Village life is guided by male-dominated village hierarchies. Bengali men have traditionally been involved in tasks that take place outside the home while women engaged in tasks centered around the home. With farming, men tend to do the plowing, planting, wedding and harvesting while women take care of threshing, drying and husking crops near the home. Women also take care of household chores and child rearing. There are sometimes taboos about women working outside of the home. The taboos are often less strict with lower caste women because of economic necessity.
Family Dynamics in Bangladesh
Brides often move in with the parents of the groom. Typical spouses knew each other only slightly, if at all, before marriage. Although marriages between cousins and other more distant kin occurred frequently, segregation of the sexes generally kept young men and women of different households from knowing each other well. Marriage functioned to ensure the continuity of families rather than to provide companionship to individuals, and the new bride's relationship with her mother-in-law was probably more important to her well-being than her frequently impersonal relationship with her husband. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989]
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: “Women traditionally are in charge of household affairs and are not encouraged to move outside the immediate neighborhood unaccompanied. Thus, most women's economic and social lives revolve around the home, children, and family. Islamic practice reserves prayer inside the mosque for males only; women practice religion within the home. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
“The society is patriarchal in nearly every area of life, although some women have achieved significant positions of political power at the national level. For ordinary women, movement is confined, education is stressed less than it is for men, and authority is reserved for a woman's father, older brother, and husband. Men are expected to be the heads of their households and to work outside the home. Men often do the majority of the shopping, since that requires interaction in crowded markets. Men spend a lot of time socializing with other men outside the home. You can see men urinating in a gutter, smoking and having a conversation.
Miti Sanjana wrote in the Dhaka Tribune: “Unfortunately, our society does not recognise a wife’s contributions to the marital home or the sacrifices she makes. A woman works from dawn to dusk to build her home. Sometimes she does not even have the time to take a break. She works just as hard as her husband, and yet the husband occasionally abuses her. Unable to endure the abuse, she sometimes seeks shelter at her parental home, but they force her to return. Thus, she is forced to consent to her husband’s second marriage as she has no other option.” [Source: Miti Sanjana, Dhaka Tribune. August 28, 2017]
According to Human Rights Watch: “Marufa B. married at age 15, but was immediately unhappy in her in-laws’ home. “My mother-in-law used to treat me very badly and my husband was also with her. I would always have to work all day and I wasn’t allowed to take any rest. My husband hit me once or twice,” she said. Marufa went back to visit her parents after four months of marriage and refused to return to her husband’s house; she is now separated from her husband. “At first [my parents] told me to stay on in the marriage, but then when I still resisted they said they can’t force me and it’s better that I come back now because it’s harder if I have a child.” [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]
Kin Groups and Inheritance in Bangladesh
Patrilineal ties dominated the ideology of family life, but in practice matrilineal ties were almost as important. Married women provided especially important links between their husbands' brothers' families. Brothers and sisters often visited their brothers' households, which were in fact the households of their deceased fathers. By Islamic law, women inherited a share of their fathers' property and thus retained a claim on the often scanty fields worked by their brothers. By not exercising this claim, however, they did their brothers the important service of keeping the family lands in the patrilineal line and thus ensured themselves a warm welcome and permanent place in their brothers' homes [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: The patrilineal descent principle is important, and the lineage is very often localized within a geographic neighborhood in which it constitutes a majority. Lineage members can be called on in times of financial crisis, particularly when support is needed to settle local disputes. Lineages do not meet regularly or control group resources. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Islamic inheritance rules specify that a daughter should receive one-half the share of a son. However, this practice is rarely followed, and upon a household head's death, property is divided equally among his sons. Daughters may receive produce and gifts from their brothers when they visit as "compensation" for their lack of an inheritance. A widow may receive a share of her husband's property, but this is rare. Sons, however, are custom-bound to care for their mothers, who retain significant power over the rest of the household. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Extended families have traditionally held property jointly. Bengali Hindu rules about inheritance are governed by the dayabhaga system of customary law, which states that ancestral property is handed down from a deceased man to his sons, who have traditionally divided the wealth equally. The wife and daughters are generally left out of the formula but have the right to be taken care of by sons and brothers. According to Islamic law, Muslim women are supposed to receive a share of the inheritance.. But since men are expected to be breadwinners, daughters customarily forfeit or are deprived of their inheritance which is given to sons.
Children and Education Statistics for Bangladesh
Under-five mortality rate: 30.8 per 1,000 live births. [Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Child protection
Children under age 5 whose births are registered: 56 percent
Women aged 20-24 years who were first married or in union by age 18: 59 percent
Children aged 1 to 14 years who experienced any violent discipline (psychological aggression and/or physical punishment): in the past month: 89 percent
Justification of wife beating (female): 25 percent
Justification of wife beating (male): 36 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Education Statistics for Early Childhood
Attendance in early childhood education: 19 percent
Early stimulation and responsive care (any adult household member); 63 percent
Early stimulation and responsive care (father): 11 percent
Learning materials at home — children's books: 6 percent
Learning materials at home — playthings: 67 percent
Children left in inadequate supervision: 11 percent.
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Education
Adjusted net attendance rate, one year before official primary entry age; 77 percent
Adjusted net attendance rate, primary education: 86 percent
Adjusted net attendance rate, lower secondary education: 56 percent
Adjusted net attendance rate, upper secondary education: 48 percent
Completion rate, primary education: 83 percent
Youth literacy rate (15 — 24 years): 95 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Child Health in Bangladesh
Infant mortality rate: total: 28.3 deaths/1,000 live births, ; compared with other countries in the world: 60
male: 30.6 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 26 deaths/1,000 live births (2020 estimated)
[Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]
Proportion of under-five children with suspected pneumonia taken to health provider: 46 percent
Proportion of children under five years old with diarrhoea receiving oral rehydration salts: 72 percent
Percentage of infants who received three doses of DTP vaccine: 98 percent
Percentage of children who received the second dose of measles containing vaccine: 95 percent.
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Child Survival
Under-five mortality rate (U5MR): 31 deaths per 1,000 live births
Number of under-five deaths: 89,796
Infant mortality rate (IMR): 26 deaths per 1,000 live births
Neonatal mortality rate (NMR): 19 deaths per 1,000 live births
Under-five mortality rate (U5MR): 33 deaths per 1,000 live births (male)
Under-five mortality rate (U5MR): 29 deaths per 1,000 live births (female)
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Maternal and Newborn Health
Proportion of women aged 15-49 who received postnatal care within 2 days after giving birth: 65 percent
Antenatal care coverage for at least four visits: 37 percent
Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel: 59 percent
Caesarean section: 36 percent
Proportion of women 20-24 years old who gave birth before age 18: 24 percent
Maternal mortality ratio (number of maternal deaths): 173 per 100,000 live births
Births who had their first postnatal checkup within the first two days after birth: 67 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Nutrition
Early initiation of breastfeeding (within one hour of birth): 51 percent
Exclusive breastfeeding: 65 percent (<6 months)
Continued breastfeeding rate (20-23 months) at one year: 88 percent
Prevalence of moderate and severe stunting: 31 percent
Vitamin A supplementation (full): 0 percent
Proportion of households consuming iodized salt: 68 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Sanitation
Proportion of population using basic sanitation services: 48 percent
Proportion of population using limited sanitation services: 23 percent
Proportion of population using unimproved sanitation services: 29 percent
Proportion of population practising open defecation: 0 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Drinking water
Proportion of population using at least basic drinking water service: 97 percent
Proportion of population using limited drinking water services: 2 percent
Proportion of population using unimproved drinking water services: 1 percent
Proportion of population using surface water: 1 percent
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org]
Infant Customs in Bangladesh
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: Most women give birth in their natal households, to which they return when childbirth is near. A husband is sent a message when the child is born. Five or seven days after the birth the husband and his close male relatives visit the newborn, and a feast and ritual haircutting take place. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
The newborn is given an amulet that is tied around the waist, its eye sockets may be blackened with soot or makeup, and a small soot mark is applied to the infant's forehead and the sole of the foot for protection against spirits. Newborns and infants are seldom left unattended. Most infants are in constant contact with their mothers, other women, or the daughters in the household. Since almost all women breastfeed, infant and mother sleep within close reach. Infants' needs are attended to constantly; a crying baby is given attention immediately.
According to the “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices” Muslims choose Quranic and biblical names for their children, but Persian names associated with rulers are also quite common. The marriage ceremony has many features distinctive to Bangladesh, including the panchini, when the ring is given to the bride by a parent or guardian, as well as a gay holud (symbolic bathing in turmeric water) for the bride and then a gay holud for the groom. After a feast arranged by the bride's family, the groom's family organizes a bou bhat, which is a feast held primarily for the groom's family. [Source:“Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”, Thomson Gale, 2006]
Child Rearing and Rites of Passage in Bangladesh
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: Children are raised within the extended family and learn early that individual desires are secondary to the needs of the family group. Following orders is expected on the basis of age; an adult or older child's commands must be obeyed as a sign of respect. Child care falls primarily to household women and their daughters. Boys have more latitude for movement outside the household. Between ages five and ten, boys undergo a circumcision (musulmani ), usually during the cool months. There is no comparable ritual for girls, and the menarche is not publicly marked. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
In an article on Bangladeshi village life, Kamran Nahar wrote: “Ceremonies, like Mukhe Bhat, Akika, Khatna, were in custom in the past and are still celebrated with as grandiosely as one’s economic condition allows. While a baby reaches in the age of six months, it becomes able to eat solid food like rice. Parents help it start eating this food through a celebration called, ‘mukhe bhat’. On this day, parents feed their baby the first rice in the presence of the invited in a happy environment. [Source: “Bangladesh Culture: A Study of the South Para of Village ‘Silimpur’” by Kamrun Nahar, September 2, 2006]
“When this baby gets five or six years old, they arrange another ceremony known as ‘Akika’. They sacrifice two goats for a boy and one goat for a girl, by which they give him or her a good Islamic name. While this boy grows up to 5-6 years old, they expend for another ceremony ‘Khatna’. On this day, a maulabi cuts the extended large skin of the boy’s sexual organ and after that there is a feast for the guests. Also new ones, by imitating those of towns, are being introduced in the society of village, for example, the marriage anniversary.”
Family Dynamics with Boys and Girls in Bangladesh
In an an article on child marriage Human Rights Watch reported that many families were driven to marry off their daughters because of concerns about their relationships with boys and the impact these might have on the honor and reputation of the family. “My mother wanted me to get married because she was afraid I would fall in love with someone,” 15-year-old Hasina A., told Human Rights Watch. “She stopped my education because she wanted me to get married. She said I was getting old and people were saying a lot of things.” [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]
“Abida N., after marrying her older daughter at 15, told Human Rights Watch she would like to allow her younger daughter to wait until she is 20 to marry, “But if she is going to do something with some boy, to save myself I will have to get her married. We need to save our daughters. Not all girls are good. To save their lives and dignity we have to get them married. A 10-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy ran away and got married from this area recently. If we try to follow the government rule [the minimum marriage ages of 18 for women and 21 for men set by the Child Marriage Restraint Act (CMRA)] we will be in trouble. Boys and girls run away and then we’re in trouble.”
““We were afraid someone would cause trouble for her,” Suresh M. said, explaining why he arranged for his daughter to marry at age 16. “A boy had proposed to her, but we managed to cover that incident up. If anyone got to know that a boy proposed it would have caused problems for her. He would disturb her— he got others to take the proposal to her.” Suresh regrets his decision now. “If I had had a little more patience, I could have managed the situation and that would have been better because now she’s having too many problems in her in-laws’ house.” [8
“The importance attached to a girl’s reputation and the fragility of that reputation means that a girl’s future can easily be damaged simply by rumors. “The boys disturb us,” said Parveen L., who married at age 15. “They throw little stones, they stand in the path. They threaten us and say, ‘We’ll do you some harm— we will tell everyone that there is a relationship between you and me.’ People in the village see these things and if they think there is a relationship then we will never be able to get married.”There is also a fear of boys or men “taking girls away,” a phrase which encompasses both abduction and elopement.
““If our daughter went off or someone took her away it would hurt our pride and our respect and we could never get it back,” Shahida A. said, explaining why she forced her daughter to marry at age 16. “At this age girls sometimes start liking boys and do something wrong, or boys take girls away. We are poor people and this would be very shameful for us, so we decided to get her married.”
Three Children Die Every Hour from Accidents in Bangladesh
According to a 2005 UNICEF-supported study, three children die every hour in Bangladesh from drowning, road accidents, burns, falls, animal bites, electrocution, suffocation and internal injuries. BD News reported: “This was revealed in a report of Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey (BHIS), sponsored by UNICEF, the Bangladesh government and the Alliance for Safe Children (TASC). The BHIS was conducted at the community level and included more than 170 thousand households representing almost 820,000 infants, children and adults. [Source: BD News, Published: May 8, 2005]
“The survey report showed that injuries now account for 38 per cent of all classifiable deaths among children aged 1 to 17 years. Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Khondoker Mosharraf Hossain said, "It is a great concern that children are not only dying due to injury, but they are also disabled and orphaned. These are the long-term burdens that society and the nation must face. Dr Hossain said a multi-sectoral approach is needed to mitigate the "epidemic".
“Drowning, road accidents, burns, falls, animal bites, electrocution, suffocation and internal injuries killed more than 30,000 children in Bangladesh in 2002 — that shows 83 child deaths a day or 3 per hour, according to the survey. The BHIS also highlights the number of children hurt but not killed by injury. In 2002, nearly one million children were injured, that is 2,600 a day or almost 2 in every minute.
“The burden of injuries is high with two children in every 100 injured significantly enough to require medical care, or lose at least three days of school work. Further, over 13,000 permanent disabilities are annually caused by injuries among children in Bangladesh. “Injury is an integral part of child survival. This survey clearly shows that injury is a leading killer of children over one year of age," said UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh Morten Giersing.
“Drowning has been identified as the single leading cause of death in the 1-17 age group. Most drowning incidents occur between the time children learn to walk and by the age of three. Most drowning take places in the rural areas, during the day, within 20 meters from home, when the mothers are busy with housework or other chores. The report further found that infants have the lowest injury rates. The situation changes dramatically when an infant begins to walk at age one and rapidly rise to a peak in early childhood (1-4 years) and then slowly decrease as children become older.
“In the younger children, falls, burns and cuts are the predominate causes of morbidity and in older children these are falls, cuts and road traffic accidents. Suicide becomes the leading cause of death among 15-17 years. The survey supports the observation that injury is a stage of life issue, and that all children must be considered at risk, not just the under-five's. Children older than four years of age (5-17) are usually not included in child health statistics, yet it is in these age groups that injury predominates and is the leading cause of death.
Similar, but smaller scale injury surveys have also been conducted in Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and China. These surveys bear out the same results as those in Bangladesh — injury is a leading killer of children over 1 year of age in Asia. “There is an injury epidemic across all over Asia and it's not just young children under 5 years of age. Half of all the injury deaths occur in children between the ages of 6 and 17," said President of The Alliance for Safe Children Ambassador Pete Petersen.
Child Labor in Bangladesh
There are several million child laborers in Bangladesh, By some estimates they make about 12 percent of workforce. They can be seen on roads breaking rocks with hammers and in brick kilns working for less than a dollar a day. There are gross abuses at factories. Many more help in the fields in their villages. The use of child labor is often the result of poverty. Some families need their children to work to put food on the table.
Many children start working before the age of 10 to help their families make ends meet. According to “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations”: “Because of widespread poverty, children are forced to work at a very young age, and are frequently abused and subjected to dangerous working conditions. More than half of all children suffer from malnutrition. There is a huge problem of trafficking of both women and children. Some estimates place the number of child laborers as high as 10 million, including an estimated 29,000 child prostitutes. There are an estimated 400,000 homeless children, of which approximately 150,000 have no knowledge of their parents. [Source: “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations”, Thomson Gale, 2007]
Industries in which child labor is used include ones that make bidis (hand-rolled cigarettes), bricks, dried fish, footwear, furniture (steel), garments glass, leather, matches, poultry salt, shrimp, soap, textiles and jute products. [Source:U.S. Department of Labor]
According to the U.S. Department of Labor: “Children in Bangladesh engage in the worst forms of child labor, including forced child labor in the production of dried fish and bricks. Children also perform dangerous tasks in the production of garments and leather goods. In addition, the labor law does not prohibit children from working in informal economic sectors, and does not specify the activities and number of hours per week of light work that are permitted for children ages 12 and 13. Moreover, the number of labor inspectors is insufficient for the size of Bangladesh’s workforce, and fines are inadequate to deter child labor law violations. [Source: U.S. Department of Labor]
Taslima A. Told Human Rights Watch she was forced to leave school and go to Dhaka to work in a garment factory at age 14 or 15. She is the sole provider for her family; the family struggles to survive in rural Noakhali in part because Taslima’s father has disabilities. Taslima married at 15, and now at age 18 is struggling to get a divorce from her abusive husband. She earns 6,000 taka [$7 per month in the factory. “I don’t have access to the government, but you do,” she said to Human Rights Watch. “You should tell them that people like me, with a father with no legs, we are suffering. They could give us land. We need land, and money, and domestic animals. We paid money to get this land [where the family’s house is] from someone, but that person is now trying to evict us. We don’t have a lot of money— they are pressuring us that we have to either pay or leave.” [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]
See Labor
Child Trafficking in Bangladesh
Human traffickers in Bangladesh have sold children to organizers of camel races as jockeys and organized rings of beggars. In some cases they are made into prostitutes and bonded servants. Children from Bangladesh have been sent to India to work at brothels there. Prostitution rings in India also provide children for clients abroad, particularly in the Middle East.
There were stories in the newspapers in the 19990s and 2000s about children being kidnaped and drugged and taken to the Middle East. Children have been kidnapped from Bangladesh and sold for as little as $20 a head to to work as jockeys in camel races in UAE, Kuwait and the other Gulf states.
According to a television documentary in the early 2000s children as young as two were being kidnaped and sold in the United Arab Emirates as camel jockeys. Some of the children were routinely beaten and underfed. Others are killed in falls or trampled to death. The UAE national camel jockey association said that children should be at least 14 years old. Child camel jockeys have now largely been replaced by robots.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh National Portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022