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DHAKA, Bangladesh, Oct 29 2026 (IPS) – Dowry is still continuing society in one kind or another. This deeply entrenched social practice continues deepen family hardship and trigger violence versus females. The concern is no longer whether Bangladesh has a law versus dowry. It does. The more unpleasant concern is why the law has actually stopped working to make dowry socially undesirable and almost hard to require. The Dowry Prohibition Act 2018 makes the need for dowry a criminal offense. Direct or indirect needs can lead to one to 5 years’ jail time, a fine of as much as Tk 50,000, or both. Providing, taking or helping in the offering or taking of dowry is likewise punishable. The law even makes dowry-related arrangements void. The presence of legislation has actually not gotten rid of the practice. Rather, dowry has actually significantly adjusted itself to modern-day financial and social truths.
Shahiduzzaman
It might no longer constantly be referred to as”dowry”. A need for a bike, money for an organization, furnishings, electronic devices, an automobile, cash for migration, payment of a loan or monetary help to the groom’s household can be provided as a”present”,”aid”or “household contribution”. In many cases, needs continue years after marital relationship. This makes dowry more difficult to determine, file and prosecute.
Research study released in Development and Change in 2024 offers a troubling illustration. In a research study of 206 cases including distressed marital relationships, 52 percent included problems of continuing dowry needs. In 81 percent of those cases, the need was accompanied by violence versus better halves. The cases crossed financial classes, revealing that dowry is not merely an issue of bad households.
The human rights effects are extensive. Dowry changes marital relationship from a relationship in between 2 people into a financial deal in which a female can be dealt with as a source of wealth. When the predicted payment is not made, or when the hubby or his household thinks it is inadequate, the lady might deal with embarrassment, risks, physical attack, mental abuse, financial deprivation, desertion or expulsion from the marital home.
The current nationwide proof on violence versus ladies makes the broader context difficult to disregard. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNFPA’s 2024 Violence Against Women Survey discovered that 76 percent of ever-married ladies had actually experienced a minimum of one kind of intimate partner violence in their life time under the more comprehensive Bangladesh-specific meaning. Almost half, 49 percent, experienced such violence throughout the previous 12 months. The study particularly recognizes dowry practices amongst the aspects related to increased danger of intimate partner violence.
This is not simply a ladies’s concern. It is a human rights problem including the rights to life, self-respect, equality, security and liberty from violence. The most frightening effect is death. According to figures pointed out by the European Union Agency for Asylum from Ain o Salish Kendra tracking, Bangladesh taped 77 reported events of dowry-related violence versus ladies in 2024. Of these, 36 females passed away as an outcome of the violence, and another 7 apparently passed away by suicide. Throughout January-June 2025, 45 events were tape-recorded, with 23 ladies supposedly passing away from the violence.
These figures must not be translated as the overall variety of dowry-related deaths in Bangladesh. They represent recorded cases taped by a human rights tracking organisation, and lots of occurrences might never ever reach cops, courts or the media. The nationwide violence study discovered that 62 per cent of survivors never ever revealed the violence they experienced.
The reasons for dowry-related deaths are likewise exposing. They can consist of serious whippings, burns, strangulation, poisoning, required or pushed suicide, and other kinds of physical violence. Sometimes, what exists as suicide might follow extended harassment, risks and financial browbeating. This is why every suspicious death of a wife following accusations of dowry need is worthy of an objective examination instead of being dismissed as a “household matter”.
Dowry likewise makes bad households poorer. For a low-income family, setting up a child’s marital relationship can suggest offering land, animals or efficient possessions, taking loans, obtaining from family members or utilizing cost savings built up over years. The World Bank has actually recorded the strong relationship in between hardship and dowry in Bangladesh.
This develops a vicious circle. Hardship motivates households to see marital relationship as a monetary requirement; dowry drains pipes home resources; financial obligation deteriorates the household’s financial security; and financial reliance can make ladies less able to leave violent marital relationships. Dowry can likewise add to kid marital relationship. UNICEF research study keeps in mind that in spite of the 2018 law, households continue to deal with public opinion surrounding dowry. Since dowry can increase as women age, some households wed children earlier to lower the anticipated monetary problem.
Bangladesh is not facing this issue alone. India provides an essential contrast. Indian law not just restricts dowry however likewise has a particular legal classification for “dowry death”. Under Section 304B, now continued as Section 80 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, a female’s abnormal death within 7 years of marital relationship can be dealt with as dowry death when there is proof of ruthlessness or harassment connected to dowry needs. The penalty is a minimum of 7 years’ jail time and can reach life jail time. India’s experience likewise shows that more powerful legislation alone is not enough. Authorities Indian information tape-recorded 6,156 dowry-death cases in 2023.
The lesson for Bangladesh is clear: criminalisation should be accompanied by efficient enforcement, examination, prosecution, survivor security and social change. Bangladesh for that reason requires to move beyond symbolic restriction. Cops need to deal with dowry grievances as major criminal claims rather than personal household conflicts. Second, examinations into suspicious deaths of wives need to take a look at previous dowry needs, monetary deals, messages, dangers, medical records and testament from neighbours and family members. Third, victims require available legal help, emergency situation shelter and financial assistance. A female who has no earnings, no safe location to live and obligation for kids might stay with a violent spouse merely since leaving appears financially difficult.
The much deeper issue is not the lack of law. It is the space in between law and social truth. A society can not declare significant development on females’s rights while a lady can be beaten due to the fact that her household can not offer cash, required to leave her marital home due to the fact that a need stays overdue, or lose her life due to the fact that marital relationship has actually been developed into a monetary deal.
The author is the Editor and CEO of News Network
This story was initially released by The Daily Sun
IPS UN Bureau
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