Suspend DSA till it’s ‘improved significantly’
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The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, has recommended suspending the Digital Security Act until it is significantly improved.
He has also expressed alarm at the chilling effect of the DSA as journalists, human rights defenders, opposition politicians and academics have been detained for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of opinion.
The UN official was speaking at a press briefing at a city hotel yesterday after wrapping up his 12-day tour to Bangladesh.
He visited Dhaka, Rangpur, Kurigram, Cox's Bazar and spoke to workers, farmers, civil society groups and government officials. He will present a report on his visit to the UN in Geneva in September.
Schutter said since the DSA came into force, more than 2,400 people have been prosecuted under the law and some of them were detained for a long time.
This is not normal that people who fight for human rights live in fear and intimidation, he added.
"These developments will not only scare off the very investors the country is trying to attract, but also will create an obstacle to the realisation of economic and social rights.
"You cannot deliver healthcare, education or social protection without also improving accountability and transparency," the special rapporteur said.
He acknowledged Bangladesh's significant progress, but observed that the progress remains fragile as those lifted out of poverty may become poor again anytime as they cannot withstand any shock.
This is more so because of the climate change impacts as well as poor social protection systems mired with irregularities in a country where income and asset inequalities are quite high, he said.
Schutter said in 2000, 48.9 percent Bangladeshis were counted as poor, and the figure dropped to 18.7 percent in 2022. Extreme poverty fell from 34.3 percent to 5.6 percent during the same period. However, general indicators do not tell the whole story as income inequality is rising.
Measured in Gini coefficient, income inequality stood at 0.499 in 2022, up from 0.458 in 2010, he said.
The special rapporteur said a category of "new poor" is also emerging. The households, which are just above the poverty line, have little to no savings, and are highly vulnerable to becoming poor after a shock.
The Gini coefficient measures the extent to which the distribution of income within a country deviates from a perfectly equal distribution.
A 2022 survey conducted in Dhaka by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies found 51 percent of the people in poverty fell below the poverty line to become "new poor".
Against such a backdrop, inflation has become a major concern, becoming the "enemy of the poorest people", Schutter said, suggesting that the government focus on strengthening the resilience of households to shocks.
He said strong social protection system is, therefore, very important, but it is "a patchwork of 119 schemes that emerge on an ad hoc basis, are poorly coordinated and do not provide the level of income security that Bangladeshis should expect".
Also, in many cases, people need to pay bribes for benefits of social protection, he added.
Schutter said the government must move away from its reliance on cheap labour if it is to ensure a rights-based development after Bangladesh's LDC graduation. "A country's comparative advantage cannot lie in keeping its people poor."
He said Bangladesh has put an over-emphasis on physical infrastructure. When it is important to build roads, bridges and dams, high numbers of child marriages and secondary school dropouts remain a major concern, he observed.
This is deeply problematic, especially when the country graduates out of LDC, the UN official said.
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