Sheika Hasina

Sheika Hasina is a member of one of the world’s smallest political clubs: Women who are heads of government. There are nine.

Hers is also one of the world’s toughest political jobs. Bangladesh has a population roughly half the size of the United States crammed into a land mass the size of Wisconsin; per-capita income is less than $400 a year; and one-third of the land is under water for months each year from catastrophic floods and cyclones.

Sheika Hasina never sought either role. But like an unusual group of women in South Asia--six others in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and another in Bangladesh have all headed governments--she grew into the job through her family.

As a young college student, she took to the streets during mass demonstrations to demand Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. Her father was the new nation’s first prime minister. He was murdered--along with 15 other family members, including her mother and three brothers--in 1975, while she was visiting her husband studying abroad.

The mantle of leading her father’s party, the Awami League, eventually fell on Sheika Hasina’s shoulders. She’s since taken to the role with fearsome zeal.

For the first time, Bangladesh can feed itself. The country has created a booming export industry in garments, which, in turn, has spawned a gender revolution by bringing millions of women into the workplace. In 1998, she even negotiated a peaceful solution to a vicious two-decade tribal war for secession that left some 14,000 dead--and then personally supervised as rebels surrendered their guns.

Sheika Hasina, who favors elegant, embroidered saris, is separated from her husband, a nuclear physicist, and has dropped his surname. Like vast numbers of Bangladeshi women, she now has no last name. Sheika is an honorific title.

On an official visit to Washington recently, Sheika Hasina talked of her mostly Muslim country’s recent progress, as well as its profound problems, during an interview at Blair House, the historic U.S. guest house for visiting heads of state across from the White House. She did not come alone. As she spoke, the noisy sounds of her two toddler grandchildren, who live with her daughter in Miami, emanated from the second floor.

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Question: How has globalization affected a poor country like Bangladesh?

Answer: Most of the [United Nation’s list of] 48 least-developed countries [LDCs], including Bangladesh, remain largely unintegrated. We’re trying to create an environment that will help us participate in globalization, including passing reforms to attract investment. But all these measures will not be effective if developed countries don’t allow our products into their markets. The U.S. [can] take the lead in demonstrating a firm and unequivocal commitment to opening markets to exports of the LDCs.

Q: How are you adapting to ensure you are not left behind?

Robin Wright is chief diplomatic correspondent for The Times.

A: In 1996, Bangladesh, a country with 120 million people, had only 200,000 phones. We’ve undertaken major expansion and introduced cellular phones. We’ve withdrawn taxes on computers, all of which we import. We’ve allocated land for information-technology villages with fiber-optic links, and we’re creating an export-processing zone especially for information technology. We’ve started computer schools to create more skilled workers. We now have more than 50 Internet service providers.

Q: The idea of microcredit and microbusiness--giving poor people loans as small as $10 or $15 to start businesses--was the brainchild of a Bangladeshi economics professor. It’s been adopted throughout the developing world. How has it changed Bangladesh?

A: Microcredit is causing a paradigm shift in our economic structure. It starts very small-scale, with fishers or poultry workers, cottage industries or grocers. But it regenerates and has a multiplier effect. It also develops in an independent way: Government doesn’t regulate the way the businesses operate. It has had the biggest impact on women who have started their own businesses and can now stand on their own feet.

Q:. Bangladesh was crafted out of Pakistan, but it also has unusually good relations with India. Both countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998, and tensions are running high over fighting in Kashmir. How dangerous is South Asia?

A: President Bill Clinton described South Asia as the most dangerous place in the world, and I share his concern. Immediately after the nuclear tests, I went to New Delhi and Islamabad to impress upon the leaders the need to engage in a meaningful dialogue to reduce tension in the region. But what we’re also really worried about is the fact that, despite globalization and our open-market policies and liberal investment programs, the entire region has been unable to attract capital and foreign investment because of the tension.

Q: What do you want from the United States?

A: I requested technical assistance and training for development of human resources in information technology. I urged Clinton to grant Bangladeshi products duty-free and quota-free access to the United States. In recognition of Bangladesh’s leading role in eliminating child labor from the garment industry, it should have been rewarded much earlier. Also, one of the saddest chapters in our history was the brutal killing of my father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and several family members. Three of the convicted killers now live in the United States. I requested the president’s assistance in expeditious finalization of the extradition treaty.

Q: At independence, Bangladeshi women averaged six to seven children. Today, that rate has been halved by a strong family planning program. Yet, Bangladesh still has 120 million people and, by the year 2050, will have at least twice that number, according to the U.S. State Department. How will Bangladesh feed, educate, employ and house those kinds of numbers?

A: We’ll send them to America. (Laughter). Globalization will take that problem away, as you free up all factors of production, also labor. There’ll be free movement, country to country. Globalization in its purest form should not have any boundaries, so small countries with big populations should be able to send population to countries with big boundaries and small populations. Already, we have nearly 2 million working abroad. Together with controlling population growth, we’re also taking measures to increase production of food.

Q: Bangladesh has long been a patriarchal society. Many women have no surname. They can be abandoned by husbands who simply pronounce their own divorce decrees--and can leave without alimony or support. Until recently, women were not even supposed to leave the home, much less work. How is that changing?

A: We have a National Women Development Policy. Special incentives include scholarships. We have a quota that allocates 30 seats for women in parliament; they can also contest any other seat. We also have quotas for women in the civil service, both professional and nonprofessional categories. And my government has taken the step to recruit women in active military service. Many microcredit loans for women are interest-free. Women have emerged as equal partners in the development process. My government passed the 2000 Women and Children Repression Prevention Act. We have special courts to address this problem. We’re also taking stringent measures to address the growing incidence of trafficking in women and children.

Q: Over the past three years, Bangladesh has discovered major new gas reserves--some 16 trillion cubic feet--and more discoveries are expected. Your country can’t begin to use even a small amount of that, while neighboring India is hungry for gas. Why has Bangladesh refused to sell gas to India?

A: One of our few resources is gas. After fully meeting our domestic requirements and ensuring gas reserves for 50 years, the remaining surplus gas may be available for export. I don’t see a decision on export until elections, scheduled for next year, are over.