Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda: We have come here together with the regional director to understand and support UN Women's effort in Bangladesh. We are here to support the country, the government, the civil society.

We had an opportunity to meet with the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and with the Elections Commission. These gave us a perspective on where the country is three months after the elections.

Bangladesh is one of the countries that have ratified many international conventions and treaties that advance women's issues including the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women CEDAW). There's still a little more to do like lifting the reservation on Articles 2 and 16 of the Convention.

The country has some solid policies but the critical action is around implementation. In our meetings with the government, the emphasis was around implementation of existing policies and scaling up some of the innovations and creative ways to address social protection issues like the family card, the farmer's card.

There is also acknowledgement that the area of women in decision making is not satisfactory in terms of the numbers that were achieved in the elections, in terms of women's participation in the elections. There are seven women who are directly elected and there are 50 who are through the quota system. Bangladesh is a member of the United Nations has a commitment to gender parity, so there's still more work to be done. We are looking forward to the forthcoming municipal elections and local elections. That can be a start to build a solid base for increasing women's participation and also participation of women as voters. We heard how some women were not able to register to vote. There were social norms that limit their participation. Women's political participation is as candidates, as voters and in the administration of the election. So it was good to meet with a woman who is in the Election Commission.

We had engagement with the women of this country, the women's rights organisations, the wider civil society organisations, the young women, women with disabilities, women who were involved in the July uprising, And what we heard are issues that have regional and global perspective.

Access to services is critical. Shifting social norms is important for us to reduce gender inequalities, for us to empower women, to have rights of women. It's also important to understand the diversity of the country. When we met with the indigenous women or women in rural areas, some of their issues are the same as others, but they are also extra issues, land rights issues. So we had a very good interaction in terms of the levels of poverty, economic empowerment, sexual gender-based violence and violence against women.

There are unacceptable levels of what is called child marriage which I call child rape. Sexual exploitation and abuse is 50 per cent. That is very high. One is too many but 50 per cent is unacceptable.

We also cry with one eye, but smile a bit with the other. We are deeply hurt when we see the conditions of women refugees. They just want peace and to go back home, but they also want to live in safety where they are now. They also want skills and education for themselves, for their children.

We really appreciate that Bangladesh is hosting 1.2 million. We also appreciate the hospitality of the host community and of the people of Bangladesh and the donors who continue to support and the partners to hold this work together.

Why do I smile with another eye? It's because I saw women with courage, women who are refugees standing up to find solutions, to build skills. They are creating women's groups in order to show leadership, give hope to themselves and their children. They're giving psychosocial support and UN Women is there with partners like Action Aid. They have a multi-purpose center. We need this multi-purpose centers to be replicated over and over. While we work for long-term durable solutions, there are certain things that can be done in the moment. That was the experience from Cox Bazar.

I'm very pleased that we have a strong UN Women presence in the country in order to be the voice within the United Nations system itself. So when other UN agencies are doing their work, we are there to advise them to also carry the focus on women within their work. So that is our voice within the system. We also have our relationship with government. UN Women as an intergovernmental body has direct engagement with the state. We can advise, we can co-convene.  And lastly, our relationship with the women's organisations has certainly been an experience.

I think the last experience is just the wonderful food in this country and to know that every bowl of rice has a woman's hand in it. The woman farmer is providing the nourishment of what we what we enjoy every day. It is women feeding the nations. It's women's economic empowerment, working with women farmers within the value chain and not just for production, for survival of their households but also for export and trade. This has been my broad impressions here.