Hindu marriage registration must be made mandatory in the recently passed Hindu Marriage Registration Act, 2012 to protect the rights and ensure the social and financial security of Hindu women, said discussants at a roundtable yesterday.
Movements to end violence against minorities should also be strengthened as women become the worst victims of any form of violence, they viewed.
The roundtable, “Make Hindu marriage registration mandatory”, was jointly organised by Bangla daily Prothom Alo and Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) in the daily's office in the capital.
“The amendment is the cry of the Hindu community,” said Fazle Rabbi Miah, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the law ministry.
When the discussants criticised the government for not issuing a gazette notification after the act was passed in parliament on September 18, Fazle called the law minister over phone and requested to issue the gazette today.
“Registration of birth, marriage and death must be mandatory for all citizens,” said former High Court Judge Gour Gopal Saha.
International Crimes Tribunal Prosecutor Advocate Rana Dasgupta said a commission, comprising government officials, citizen bodies and representatives of Hindu communities, should be formed to go through necessary documents and take into account real circumstances to further develop the act.
MJF Executive Director Shaheen Anam said Hindu women who become victims of family feuds were deprived of legal assistance for not having marriage documents.
Therefore, marriage registration should be made mandatory to ensure their rights, she said.
Prof Maleka Begum of Department of Sociology and Gender Studies of Central Women's University emphasised on educating and making women self-reliant to prevent violence against them.
Pointing to her study, Meghna Guhathakurta, executive director of Research Initiatives of Bangladesh, said some 91.3 percent of the respondents, 74.5 percent of whom were women, demanded a system to make marriage registration compulsory. A total of 756 women and 180 men of the Hindu community of nine districts were interviewed for the study.
Prothom Alo Associate Editor Abdul Quayum moderated the roundtable.