To step into Dhaka’s night-time streets with a camera crew in tow is to experience a city that few of its 20 million residents would recognise. When Deutsche Welle Bangla recently dispatched Bangladeshi musician Masha Islam and German presenter Emma Kremer to film an after-dark tour, the resulting video painted a comforting portrait of illuminated night markets and humming street life. It also showed ‘serene’ safety. 

Yet for those who navigate the Bangladeshi capital without the protective aura of a professional production team, the broadcast raised the uncomfortable question… ‘safe for whom?’

There is nothing wrong about showing Dhaka’s vibrant side. The city boasts lively commercial pockets where late-night commerce flourishes. The fiction begins when a tightly managed exercise in elite travelogues is presented as a definitive statement on everyday urban life. Walking through a megacity framed by camera rigs, spotters, and local fixers is fundamentally different from a solo commute.

It is not the reality of a female worker waiting for a late-night rickshaw or a commuter disembarking at a poorly lit bus terminal. Or of just a [female] pedestrian sharing live GPS coordinates with family as a precautionary lifeline.

Safety in a city is not merely the absence of an incident during a few curated hours of filming. It is the reasonable expectation that one can move through public spaces without constantly calculating the risks of harassment or violence. By that measure, Dhaka remains an exceptionally challenging terrain, especially for women.

Female mobility in the capital is defined by pre-emptive risk management long before a journey begins. Women must weigh lighting, street density, transport reliability, and driver trustworthiness before stepping outside. A 2026 report by The Daily Star detailed how women routinely alter their routines, endure harassment on rickshaws and ride-sharing services, or rely on family escorts to avoid solo transit after dark.

Nor does this vulnerability begin when the sun sets. Harassment is deeply woven into the fabric of daily travel. A comprehensive survey by UNDP Bangladesh, the National Human Rights Commission, and the Centre for Research and Information revealed that 87% of surveyed women had experienced harassment in public spaces. 

Public transport proved particularly hostile, with 57% of respondents identifying it as the single most unsafe environment. When daylight offers little guarantee of immunity, the onset of night naturally amplifies those perils through empty roads, scarce transport, and a dearth of potential bystanders.

Official statistics reinforce this disparity. Data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics’ Citizen Perception Survey indicates that while nearly 85% of citizens report feeling safe walking alone in their neighbourhoods after dark, the gender divide is pronounced: nearly 90% of men report feeling secure, compared to 81% of women.

Yet framing night-time insecurity strictly as a gender issue misses the wider systemic dysfunction. Men in Dhaka face severe physical risks after hours, predominantly centered on mugging, extortion, and often violent assault. Transport hubs such as Sayedabad, dimly lit thoroughfares, and zones lacking closed-circuit television coverage are notorious hotspots. 

Police records show the scale of the problem: a single month-long drive by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in mid-2026 yielded nearly 1,000 arrests related to muggings and armed robbery across the city. Police data from Prothom Alo identified over 300 recurring crime hotspots, with more than three-quarters of recent analyzed incidents involving firearms or sharp weapons.

For both men and women, arriving late at a major terminal means entering a volatile environment where isolation carries immediate financial or physical peril. The difference lies in the layers of threat…while men primarily fear property loss or physical harm, women must confront those exact hazards alongside the constant threat of sexual harassment and assault.

This context thus underscores the myopia of DW’s production. A foreign journalist accompanied by a local social media personality and backed by a broadcasting apparatus operates within a bubble of social and economic privilege. The presence of cameras alters public behavior, deters potential aggressors, and establishes an invisible perimeter. It grants the presenters choices that a garment worker leaving a late shift or a university student heading home simply do not possess. 

When local residents flooded social media to protest that the broadcast bore no resemblance to their daily lives, they were pointing out the fundamental flaw of substituting elite insulation for authentic reporting.

This misstep matters because of who holds the microphone. A personal vlogger may post an anecdotal review of a night market, but an international public broadcaster bears an institutional obligation to provide accurate context. When content produced in English for a global audience reduces a complex megacity to a frictionless paradise, it trades journalistic rigor for aesthetic reassurance.

Responsible media coverage does not require flattening a city into either a dystopian crime zone or a picturesque paradise. Dhaka is simultaneously vibrant and precarious, welcoming and volatile. A more compelling narrative would have examined why urban safety remains so unevenly distributed…how income, class, gender, and infrastructure dictate who gets to enjoy the night and who must fear it.

Is Dhaka safe after dark? The only honest answer is conditional. It depends entirely on your gender, your wallet, your transport, your destination, and whether you travel with a camera crew. Journalism is not meant to manufacture comfort for foreign viewers; it is meant to report reality as it is lived.

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Adiba Hayat heads the Life and Arts section of Daily Waadaa