Participation of Women and Members of Minority Groups: No laws limited participation of women or members of minorities in the political process, and they did participate. In 2018, parliament amended the constitution to extend by 25 additional years a provision that reserves 50 seats for women. Female parliamentarians are nominated by the 300 directly elected parliamentarians. The seats reserved for women are distributed among parties proportionate to their parliamentary representation. Political parties failed to meet a parliamentary rule that women comprise 33 percent of all committee members by the end of the 2020, leading the Electoral Commission to propose eliminating the rule altogether. Freedom House noted in its annual report that societal discrimination against women, as well as against LGBTQI+ persons, limits their participation in politics. Religious, ethnic, and other marginalized groups remain underrepresented in politics and state agencies. Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government The law provides criminal penalties for conviction of corruption by officials, but the government did not implement the law effectively. There were numerous reports of government corruption during the year, and officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), set up in 2004 to serve as an independent monitoring mechanism, focuses on investigating cases of corruption, including but not limited to bribery, embezzlement, extortion, abuse of discretion, and improper political contributions. Local human rights organizations questioned the independence and effectiveness of the ACC, which they claimed was evidenced by the acquittal of most cases brought against ruling party officials and bureaucrats, while legal processes, investigations, and filing of cases against leaders of the BNP continued. Corruption: Corruption remained a serious problem. Freedom House’s annual report noted “corruption is endemic, and anticorruption efforts have been weakened by politicized enforcement.” In March media sources reported the ACC was reluctant to pursue graft cases against administration officials. In August Page 32