Hill Women’s Federation (HWF) is a representative organisation of the Jumma women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. It was founded on 8 March 1988 by some avan garde female Jumma students of ChittagongUniversity.
At the beginning its activities were confined within the university campus. However, after the fall of the military dictator General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, HWF was able to spread its activities into the CHT. In 1995 it held its first successful central conference in Khagrachari. More than one thousand Jumma women took part in it.
HWF’s activities focus on raising consciousness among the Jumma women about their rights and duties as the most repressed section of the Jumma society in the CHT. HWF is highly vocal against military repression on the Jumma women and organises protest demonstrations against every incident of human rights violations against Jumma women. In 1996 HWF came into national and international limelight when its organising secretary Kalpana Chakma was abducted by one Lt. Ferdous from her house at New Lallya Ghona village under Baghaichari Thana in Rangamati distrcit. The HWF along with other Jumma organisations launched a massive campaign against this heinous act of the military and eventually forced the government to form an inquiry committee. The committee was reported to have submitted its report in March 1997, but the government is yet to make it public. So far the government has failed to bring the culprits responsible for her abduction to justice.
Like PCP, HWF also denounces the CHT accord signed between the Government of Bangladesh and the Jana Samhati Samiti and vows to carry on the struggle for the right to self determination.