Women Activists of Bangladesh in different fields in the world

Saera Tithi Khan (born April 23, 1979 in Oslo) is a Bangladeshi-Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.

She was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Oslo in 2005. She had previously served as a deputy representative during the term 2001–2005. She was the only member of the Storting of immigrant background, until October 2007 when Akhtar Chaudhry took another of the Oslo seats.
On the local level she was a member of Oslo city council from 1999 to 2005.

Saera's Success StoryBy Shamim Ahsan KhanDaily Star

A Norwegian by birth and a Bangladeshi by blood (Homna, Comilla) Saera Khan is the first
Bangladeshi descent to have become a Member of Parliament in Norway. Saera
achieved the milestone at the age of 22 when she was elected an MP in 2001.
Though born and brought up in Norway she has not forgotten her roots buried
deep under the soil of Bangladesh. And she is proud of Bangladeshi culture
and social values, which she owns by birth. She is now in Bangladesh on an
unofficial visit, mainly to meet her relatives, most of who live in Dhaka.
However, she will take the opportunity to visit some of the Norway-funded
projects such as children shelter homes, vaccination programmes and a few
others that deal with street children.

Saera was born to an educated family. Her father Kamaluddin Khan went to
England for studying Law before he finally settled in Norway about 35 years
ago. The eldest child of the family, Saera has two younger brothers. Saera
is doing her MA in Social Economics and Politics. Her mother teaches at a
school for disabled children in Norway.

Saera's political career began quite early. She joined Labour Youth, a front
organisation of Social Democratic Labour Party at 16 and became a member of
the City Council. It was perhaps the family environment, which imbued in her
a natural interest in politics. Saera's father had been a leader of the
Foreign Workers Union, an organisation for establishing the rights of
foreign workers in Norway. Kamaluddin also helped Justice Abu Sayeed
Chowdhury who later became the first President of independent Bangladesh to
arrange news conferences in Norway through which Sayeed informed of the
liberation struggle of Bangladesh to the Norwegians as well as the rest of
the world. Abu Sayeed also stayed in his flat during his stay in Norway.
Saera knew these things and was greatly inspired by her father's emotional
attachment and strong feeling for his motherland. These certainly inspired
Saera immensely.

Now at 23, Saera is a full-time politician. The prestigious office of the
lawmaker has brought with it a huge responsibility. " Being an MP means much
more than just enjoying free cars and foreign tours as we see it in
Bangladesh. It is a full-time job that requires hard work, dedication and
professionalism," Saera notes how demanding the job is. However, what makes
Saera's job doubly daunting and a challenging one is that through her
election she has been entrusted with huge expectations of the minority
community whom she represents. In fact it was the overwhelming support of
thousands of immigrants from Asia and Africa that has won Saera a berth in
the national Parliament. So it is now her moral obligation to take up the
contentious issue of the rights of the minority and racial discriminations
that the minority community are often subjected to. Saera is very much aware
of the huge challenge ahead of her and expresses her firm commitment to live
up to the expectations of her electorates.

Only one year into the parliament Saera has already made her mark. One of
the areas where minorities are discriminated against is when they apply for
jobs. What happens is that some employers just throw away job applications
when they come across names (of the applicants) which seem non-Norwegian.
Saera has come up with a proposal that says provision should be made so that
application forms no longer carry the name of the applicants. The proposal
was greatly appreciated and will soon come up for debates in the House.
Saera relates another incident concerning minority community. In Norway
learning to swim is mandatory for all children in school. A small
organisation of Muslim people pleaded with her to do something regarding
swimming lessons because they don't want their girl children swimming in the
same pool with the boy children. Saera took up the issue with the concerned
authority and arranged different schedules for boys and girls.

Saera already a famous name in Norway, is a role model for the minority
community. Saera speaks five languages ie French, English, Norwegian, Urdu
and Bangla and travels extensively to Brussels, London, Copenhagen, Berlin
where she represents Norway in different delegations at meetings in the
European Union. Young, smart, educated and well-versed in political affairs,
Saera's achievement is certainly a great inspiration for other girls among
the minority community. While it is a remarkable achievement on an
individual level, Saera has also made Bangladesh proud. Saera's relation
with Bangladesh has been more than just a linkage through her parent's
homeland. She grew up in an environment that has been essentially
Bangladeshi in culture. She also has great admiration for the culture and
social values of Bangladesh--- family relations, respect towards seniors and
hospitality being some of them. Then, of course, she is a great fan of
Bangladeshi food--korola bhaji, hilsa fish, biryani, and futchka are among
her favourite food.

2008 psychic phone call controversy

Controversy erupted in late September 2008 when it was revealed that Khan had racked up extremely high phone bills using the mobile phone with which she was provided for free by the Parliament. The president of the Storting, Thorbjørn Jagland, refused to pay these phone bills because of the extremely large amounts involved. First, Khan claimed that the reason for the high bills was that she had called her family abroad.When this was shown to be false, she instead claimed that she had a boyfriend who was a special operations soldier, and that the phone bills originated from satellite telephone calls to this boyfriend, triggering an investigation by the Norwegian Army because Norwegian soldiers are not allowed to receive private satellite calls while on duty. The result of this investigation was that the Army denied that Khan's boyfriend was a Norwegian soldier, upon which Khan told media that the alleged boyfriend was attached to the British ISAF force, and that his identity could not be disclosed for security reasons. The British Ministry of Defence subsequently denied that soldiers in the ISAF force were allowed to receive satellite phone calls. Following these revelations, Khan admitted that the phone bills were not due to overseas satellite calls, but rather from calls to Norwegian premium-rate numbers offering psychic advice services.The morning after these revelations, October 8, Khan went on sick leave and announced later in the day that she is resigning as candidate for the 2009 parliamentary elections. Khan has repaid the part of her phone bills that exceeds reasonable use for a member of Parliament.

The BBC reported on 10 October 2008 that she had made 793 calls and that "her calls became so frequent that many fortune-tellers told her to stop ringing".

In a curious turn of events, the Norwegian soap opera "Hotel Cæsar" had a plot line about a person calling psychic advisers on his employer's expense only weeks before reports of Khan's phone use appeared in the press.

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