Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

Women empowerment and development

Published : Sunday, 3 April, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1693
Rajib Chakraborty
Women empowerment gives power to women. It makes women better off and enables a greater degree of self-confidence and a sense of independence among women.  Women empowerment helps a woman understand her rights and place her objection against any discrimination by the male or male-dominated society.

When a woman understands her stand, role, and value in society, inequality or gap between men and women will automatically be narrowed down and society will be its ultimate beneficiary.

Derothy L. Sayers, the renowned British author wrote in her beautiful work, "wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him- or so they used to see. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them".         

Promoting gender equality and empowering women by eliminating gender disparity in the educational sector, increasing the share of women in wage employment and meaningful seat proportion in the national parliament are also considered the objectives of women empowerment.

Gender equality and women empowerment are the two indispensable factors to achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to the 2020 Global Gender Gap Report published by World Economic Forum, Bangladesh ranks 50th among 153 countries, ahead of advanced countries like the USA, Italy, Korea, Japan, and also ranks first among seven South Asian countries based on the progress towards (i) Economic participation and opportunity, (ii) Educational attainment, (iii) Health and survival, and (iv) Political empowerment of women.

To reach this stage of progress, Bangladesh also made commendable progress by reducing the gender gap by eliminating primary and secondary education, sex ratio at birth; and political empowerment.

Women empowerment and economic development are closely related. There is a bidirectional relationship between the two. Empowerment improves the ability of women to access the constituents of development such as health, education, employment opportunities, human rights, and political participation.

There are two schools of thought on development. In one direction, development alone can play a major role to scale down inequality between men and women.

The government of Bangladesh has formulated several legislative measures to protect women's rights and empower women. To increase women's participation in the labor force and to ensure their legal and political empowerment, the government has launched different laws and provisions to encourage women in participating local and parliament elections.

In preventing violence against women, the Bangladesh government has formulated several special laws, including Anti Dowry Act. The other important legislative measures for improving the legal and political empowerment of women are mentioned below.

(1) Raised the upper age limit for women to 30 years and fixed quota for women's employment at 10 percent in gazetted posts and 15 percent in non-gazetted posts under government service
(2) Made mandatory to include the name of both husband and wife in the land purchase document
(3) Hostels and daycare centers have been established in some places for working women
(4) Maternity leave has been increased from 3 to 4 months
(5) 60 percent of posts of primary school teachers are reserved for females.
(6) Number of reserved seats for women in the National Parliament increased from 30 to 45.
(7) The Representation of People's (Amendment) Ordinance, 2008 provides for two elected Vice-chairmen, one of which must be a woman.
(8) The Representation of People's (Amendment) Ordinance, 2008 provides that political parties should reserve at least 33 percent of all committee positions for women.
(9) National Human Commission Act, 2009 enacted and Human Right Commission established should have at least one woman as a member.
(10) Right to Information Act, 2009 enacted and Information Commission established should have one woman as Commissioner.

The Sixth five-year plan (2011-2015) and the 7th Five Year Plan (2016-2020) considered women's engagement in political and economic activities as a cross-cutting issue and one of the main drivers of transformation. These plans were committed to improving women's status and economic condition by increasing labor force participation, employment, and enterprise development.

To make the vision fruitful, the following initiatives are attached (1) Increase women's employment opportunities (2) Promote equal pay for equal work (3) Provide childcare with life and disability insurance (4) Encourage a decent working environment in all sectors with female and male toilets and (5) Promote more accessible and easy rules to get credit facilities.

The Government of Bangladesh is committed to dealing with the problem of addressing the gender-based inequalities between women and men. The Constitution of Bangladesh ensures equal rights to all citizens and prohibits discrimination and inequality based on sex. Specifically, concerning women, Article 28 states "Women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of state and public life."

After its 50 years of independence, and the upliftment of a lower-middle-income country, Bangladesh is on the way to becoming a developed and prosperous nation in the world. Based on the women's participation in economic activities, education, health, and political empowerment, Bangladesh ranks first in South Asia in terms of gender equality. In the labor market also women capture about 38 percent of the working population where a large number of women from the village and urban areas work together.

Women also have an enormous contribution in the agricultural sector and small and medium entrepreneurial activities and in the male-dominated farming and lives-stocks activities in rural Bangladesh.

In this regard, Bangladesh bank also issued a circular on refinancing schemes for women regarding SMEs and made a policy so that every commercial bank should establish a women's wing to provide credit to women. Women's participation in various government departments including administration has now increased and been dominating.

According to census 2021, several women hold the secretaries and secretary ranked posts along with a good number of deputy commissioners working in different districts in the country.
Dr. Rajib Chakraborty, Former Chairman, Dept of Business Administration,  Additional Director (IQAC), Port City International University







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