My Body, My Life, Whose Rights? - Bangladeshi women's struggle for a fair deal

In order to trace the trajectory of women's gains and losses since Bangladesh's independence over four decades ago, the centrality of women's bodies is brought to the fore. This is illustrated through the campaign work surrounding the movement to oppose violence against women and the struggle for sex workers' rights, where discourses of bodies are shown to be pertinent for the struggle for representation, and establishing women's rights in these domains. The roots of these struggles are, however, closely linked to the liberation struggle in the early 1970s, showing that contemporary areas of social contestation have a long history. This is an adaptation of the keynote address given at the 25th Anniversary Conference of the British Association of South Asian Studies, University of Southampton, 11-13 April 2011.