Bangladesh

In 2023 the International Catholic Center of Geneva (CCIG) and the Marist Foundation for International Solidarity (FMSI) joined forces to implement the project ‘Human Rights in Bangladesh: The situation of Children and their families in the Tea Gardens of Sylhet’, together with the Marist Brothers Trust Bangladesh. The project aimed at strengthening the capacity of local civil society to report, monitor and follow-up the most pressing issues in Bangladesh through the Universal Periodic Review. 

Our main priorities:

  • Corporal punishment
  • Child labor
  • Forced child marriages
  • Access to quality education

Project activities

  • Establishment of an in-country and international key resource group to play a leadership role in advocacy efforts for promoting the rights of children and their families in the tea plantations in Bangladesh through project activities.
  • An online training course was held. The first module explained how the UPR functions, highlighting Civil Society’s opportunities to participate in it, and the second gave Civil Society actors the skills needed to draft their own UPR submission and voice their concerns on the human rights situation in their country. 
  • As a result, training beneficiaries successfully collected relevant data through interviews with children and their families and submitted to the UN a UPR submission focusing on the human rights challenges faced by children living in Bangladesh’s Sylhet tea gardens. It recognized the need for action taken to prevent corporal punishment, child labor and child marriages, as well as to increase access to quality education, including concrete recommendations for Bangladesh to take action toward these ends. 
  • Advocacy activities in Geneva. Based on the priority human rights concerns expressed by local children’s rights defenders, 57 State delegations were reached out to raise awareness on critical issues detailed in the UPR submission. Based on the recommendations made in the previous UPR cycle and the general interest shown for the UPR of Bangladesh, the targeted States were kindly requested to consider raising such issues during the upcoming UPR session. In parallel, the CCIG also continued its capacity building efforts by providing ad hoc counseling to the local partners in Bangladesh to enable them to approach embassies and advocate at the local level.
  • Dissemination of the results of the UPR. In parallel with the UPR session of Bangladesh that took place in Geneva in November 2023, several actions were undertaken to sensitize local civil society to attend virtually the UPR session, disseminate the outcomes of the review among the general public, and raise awareness on the priority issues identified. Accordingly, the submission was translated in Bangla in order to be used as an effective tool for local sensitization as well as for human rights education activities with children in school.

 

This project was realized with the support of Misean Cara.

Project participants can access training materials by entering the restricted area.

Impact

Thanks to the project, the following results were achieved to strengthen advocacy efforts in Bangladesh:

  • Empowered local civil society actors contributed to achieve: 22 concrete UPR recommendations on child labor and access to education, which confirms the relevance of this issue in the country, in line with our UPR submission. Moreover, 40% of these recommendations were addressed to Bangladesh by States reached through project advocacy activities.  12 recommendations on forced child marriage, including 2 specifically referring to key issues raised by our local partners. Moreover, the only UPR recommendation on corporal punishment was also made by one of the states reached through project advocacy activities. The Bangladesh government committed to implement most of these recommendations.
  • An oral statement was delivered in March 2023 on the occasion of the adoption of the UPR Working Group Report on Bangladesh during the 55th Session of the Human Rights Council. The statement brought to the attention of the international community the main human rights challenges in the country and called on the Government of Bangladesh for immediate and effective implementation of relevant UPR recommendations.
  • Local civil society actors committed to follow up on UPR recommendations addressed to Bangladesh.

    • Our partners

    Br. Vigirio Bwalya

    President of the Marist Brothers Trust Bangladesh and Project Coordinator
    Marist District of Asia

    P.O. Shreemangal, Box No.4. Dist. Moulovibazar – 3210 Bangladesh
    Email. zambangla@gmail.com

    Reports

    UPR-Bangladesh
    UPR-Submission-Bangladesh_ENBANGLA.pdf
    UPR-Bangladesh-Summary

    Video

    Photos

    Image copyright © 2023 Marist Foundation for International Solidarity

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