It needs no emphasising that the incumbent government has been working relentlessly to ensure equal participation of women in all the sectors. Bangladesh has made progress in leaps and bounds in closing the gender gap in the last 10 years. The government had increased allocation for women development in all national budgets from fiscal year 2009-10 to 2021-2022 and on an average the allocation witnessed a rise by 25 percent during the period. Reportedly, about 70 percent of the beneficiaries of various projects of the rural development and co-operatives department are women.
Half of the population of Bangladesh is women and their economic participation has increased remarkably over the past decade. Whether it is, business, engineering, media, aviation, sports or handicraft women have set their foothold in every field of work or profession. Women in Bangladesh are leading from the front in the country’s sustainable development. Representation of girls in high school level is similar to that of boys. But at the higher education level, this scenario is quite discouraging. Therefore, a lot more needs to be done if we want to see our women climbing the socio-economic ladders side by side with their male counterparts.
Still a section of people in our
society has a perception that
women are less empowered than men
Women’s contribution to Bangladesh’s progress in different areas is indispensable. In order to sustain the tempo of current progress of Bangladesh, women’s participation in all sectors is inevitable. In order to make this country self-reliant, pragmatic measures are needed to be taken to empower women. In this regard, necessary steps should be taken to remove all kinds of barriers and discrimination that prevent women from realizing their full potential. Also, participation of women needs to be enhanced and reinforced in decision making processes.
It is disconcerting to note that still a section of people in our society has a perception that women are less empowered than men. Hitherto rape, sexual harassment, wage discrimination, domestic violence and social discrimination against women are common phenomena in Bangladesh. Still in many spheres of life we encounter gender discrimination. Therefore, being vocal about gender discrimination and violence against women has become a part of our social responsibility.