When Modina Begum heard that a 13-year-old girl in her village in central Bangladesh was about to be married off, she went straight to the girl’s parents and persuaded them to cancel the wedding, rescuing the teenager from a fate Begum herself had escaped.

“I convinced my parents to call off my own marriage, let me finish my studies and become self-reliant before getting married,” says Begum, now 19, as she leads a group of girls in English and digital skills at the Edge club in Narsingdi district, 50 kilometres north-east of the capital, Dhaka. “Now my parents have faith in me and I have the confidence to speak out for others.”

The Edge club initiative, run by the British Council and social development organisation Brac, is helping to equip girls with skills and teach them about their rights. The project is making breakthroughs on gender equality despite a climate of increasing conservatism and – some say – “Islamisation” in the Muslim-majority country.

Two years after the government of Sheikh Hasina introduced a law allowing girls under 18 to marry, with parental and judicial consent, in “special cases” such as early pregnancy, or where marriage would protect the “family’s honour”, rights campaigners remain divided on the extent to which the legal loophole has led to a rise in early marriage. But Bangladesh has the world’s fourth highest rate of child marriage, and they are determined to keep opposing it.

Shireen Huq, founder of women’s rights organisation Naripokkho, says: “Some people who defend the government’s action say: ‘It’s not such a bad thing, why are you so upset about it?’ They say that, in any case, the parents of the young girl must seek permission from the court, so there are built-in checks and balances.

“But we have had newspaper reports of local administrative officers rushing to the site of a marriage ceremony. As soon as they know an underage girl or boy is being married, they have the power to intervene to stop it. But now they think: ‘Yes, maybe they have permission from the court.’ Once the marriage is solemnised, it’s too late.”

‘Now I have confidence to speak out’: Modina Begum. Photograph: Muhamma Murtada/British Council

Huq was speaking at the Women of the World festival in Dhaka, where deep disparities between women’s lives in urban and rural areas, and in the public and private realms, were the subject of discussions, pop-up performances and workshops.

While this month’s festival marks the first time Dhaka has hosted the international event celebrating women’s potential and confronting gender inequality, it emerged that, in a small town south-east of Dhaka, a 19-year-old woman who reported that her headteacher had sexually harassed her was doused in kerosene and set alight. She died 10 days later. The incident underlined the social issues facing women who report sexual harassment.

“There have been a lot of positive changes [for women], especially over the past decade,” says the education minister, Dipu Moni. “We have had a strong focus on girls and getting more into Stem education, as well as increasing enrolment in technical and vocational education. In some areas, such as medicine, girls are now outperforming boys and winning all the prizes. But we still have a long way to go.”

Moni is one of 14 female ministers in the government of a country where women have long dominated leadership positions: today, the prime minister, leader of the main opposition partyand parliamentary speaker are all women.

“It’s great to have so many women in powerful positions. It has symbolic importance and influences the aspirations of young girls. But it is by no means enough; it is not substantive change,” says Huq, who says the ruling Awami League’s alliance with organisations like the Islamist pressure group Hefazat-e-Islam might endanger past gains.

Rising conservatism is manifesting in “insidious ways, including the increasing assertion of Islamic identity”, warns Huq, citing changes to school textbooks, such as the removal of Hindu stories and substitution of orna – denoting a shawl worn by Muslim girls and women – to teach the letter “o”. “It’s creeping in. A four-year-old is now reading O for orna, which is the desire for modesty.”

“If you go to rural areas, they don’t like the word ‘feminist’ and no one can say it or they face a backlash"

“Today, Bangladeshis are more open, but this openness about feminism is very town-based,” says Muktasree Chakma, whose Sparc organisation works for the rights of indigenous women. “If you go to rural areas, they don’t like the word ‘feminist’ and no one can say it or they face a backlash. I am from Chittagong Hill Tracts, where there was armed conflict for 20 years. In conflict areas, women are always collateral damage – rape, gang rape, domestic violence, kidnap – these are the main issues for us.

“I have faced death threats, rape threats … especially in cases where they try to sell an indigenous girl. There is a practice where if the girl is not seen as a ‘good indigenous girl’ she will be sold. Usually the man who pays the most is physically disabled or very old, or already has wives. Now indigenous youth are also raising their voices against these practices. It’s not like Dhaka, but it’s getting better,” Chakma says.

The importance of equipping women, through education and micro-financing, to create livelihoods in rural areas to prevent mass migration to work in Dhaka’s garment factories, where many toil in exploitative conditions, was another theme at the festival, which was founded in 2010 by Jude Kelly, former artistic director of London’s Southbank Centre, and now takes place in 17 cities worldwide.

But Tasaffy Hossain – whose organisation Bonhishikha (Unlearn gender) brought its production based on the Vagina Monologues to Dhaka in 2015, and now stages shows based on women and men’s stories of inequality and abuse in Dhaka – warned against presuming that urban women were not affected by violence or discrimination.

“People kept asking us: ‘Why are you doing the Vagina Monologues with urban women? They’re educated and have all the information they need.’ But it’s not true,” she says. “We’ve had messages from [urban] women saying: ‘I am facing something at home with my husband or in-laws.’ Sometimes the response is: ‘You’re educated, how can you be facing this?’ And of course, not all urban women are the same.”

Elita Karim, a journalist and singer who recently released a music video encouraging the under-19 women’s football team and all girls to play sport, says the media reinforces taboos about women staying out in the evening to attend a rehearsal or study. “The MeToo movement was not as big here as it was in India … many offices and workplaces in Dhaka do not have a sexual harassment policy, so progress is slow.”

For Huq, whose organisation also campaigns for the separation of church and state, the practice of women inheriting half as much as their brothers “is going to be the last bastion [of gender inequality in Bangladesh]. Because it is considered a Koranic given, it is divine and cannot be interfered with… There is no excuse for not raising these issues, other than most of the lawmakers don’t want to change it. They don’t want to share property with their sisters.”

Nevertheless, she is optimistic. “The government is very attached to its image as being for female empowerment, so there is space for us to push,” she says. “But there is a lot of work to be done in terms of mobilising women.”