ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Bangladesh. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Bangladesh. Bangladeshis can change their government through elections; A referendum held in 1991 transformed the powerful presidency into a largely ceremonial head-of-state position in a parliamentary system. The Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association said in a 1999 report that organized groups traffic nearly 25,000 Bangladeshi women and children each year into Middle Eastern and other South Asian countries for the purposes of prostitution and low-paid labor. The Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union is one of the few diligent, nonpartisan unions. Aid donors frequently blame corruption, a weak rule of law, limited bureaucratic transparency, and political polarization for undermining economic development.
