Political parties have a long way to go in meeting their registration condition that binds them to have a third of the committee members women by 2020.
A keynote at a Dhaka roundtable on Friday said the major political parties do not have a significant number of women in the key posts, despite having female party chiefs.
Imran Hossain Bhuiyan, who teaches at the Dhaka University’s Department of Development Studies, in the paper said political parties have less than 12 percent women in leadership positions.
The roundtable was on ‘ensuring gender equality in political participation to build a network of women at the grassroots level’.
According to Bhuiyan, four of 12 presidium members of ruling Awami League are women.
The number is only seven out of 131 in its Central Working Committee and two out of 34 in its Advisory Council.
Only 7.34 percent of the Awami League members are women, Bhuiyan said.
In the BNP, the chairperson has no female advisor.
It has only two female members in its 16-strong National Standing Committee and 46 out of 380 Central Executive Committee.
The party has beaten the Awami League in terms of percentage of women members in its leadership – 11.18 percent.
Jatiya Party, the opposition in Parliament, has four female presidium members out of 41. The number is six in its 99-member Executive Committee. The rate of participation of women in its leadership is 7.69 percent.
The Election Commission’s registration rules for political parties stipulate that they have 33 percent women members in their committees within 2020.
Forty parties that are registered with the EC brought changes to their constitution in line with the rule in 2008.
Bhuiyan shared experience of a UST project aimed to build a network of women at the grassroots in order to ensure that men and men have proportionate representation in politics.
State Minister Meher Afroz Chumki spoke on the strategy of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and the progress it has made to empower women.
“Knowing what their rights are is important for women living at the bottom of the rung. They have to find a firm footing in society to earn men’s respect.
“It is very important to empower women for them to have any political clout,” Chumki said.
Men need to come forward and help, she said, being so far ahead, they need to understand that “we need to walk together”
Source: bdnews24
