Women still lag behind men in terms of participation in politics and economic and social advancement activities as the government has failed to achieve major goals that the National Women Development Policy aims.
The policy still remains on paper as major objectives of the policy like establishing equal rights of men and women in areas of state and public life, ensuring security and safety of women in all areas of state, social and family life and ensuring the socio-economic, political, administrative and legal empowerment are still a far cry, said women rights activists after six years of the adaptation of the policy in 2011.
Women are still underrepresented in the central committees of the political parties including the ruling Awami League and opposition Bangladesh National Party as the committees have about 15-20 per cent representation of women, although the policy set a target to ensure 33 per cent representation of women in the political parties.
The government is yet to take any initiative to hold direct elections to the seats reserved for women in parliament and all local government bodies although women have been in the street for about two decade and policy has set goal of holding direct elections to the reserved seats in parliament.
It also failed to achieve the goals of eliminating all forms of violence and discrimination against women and female children, as Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics study released in August 2016 reported that about 72 per cent of women faced violence while 49.6 per cents faced physical violence by their spouse or close relations.
‘The government has lack of interest in implementing the development policy. They make rhetoric pledges every now and then regarding to ensure women empowerment but do not translate them into reality,’ said Nari Grantha Prabartana
executive director Farida Akter.
‘It is really unfortunate that we do not see any holistic and coordinate approach to the implementation of the policy inside years of its adaptation,’ said Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Ayesha Khanom.
State minister for women and children affairs Meher Afroze Chumki, however, said that the government was relentlessly working for ensuring economic, political and social empowerment of women.
‘We have made an action plan setting short, middle and long term targets for the implementation of the policy by 2021,’ she said.
‘We need a social awareness beside government initiative to implement the policy and bring changes to the life of women,’ she added.
Women rights activists said that constituting 50 per cent of the country’s population, females were still underrepresented in political parties.
Women got 12.15 per cent positions in the 502-memeber BNP national executive committee announced in August 2016 and 20.27 per cent positions in the AL central working committee announced in October 2016.
The state of representation of women in all other parties is more or less the same, women leaders said.
According to the Representation of the People Order, all registered political parties have to increase the proportion of female representation to 33 per cent by 2020.
Women leaders said that the country’s political environment favoured male chauvinism, muscle power and money.
Existing patriarchal system and its strong reservations about women in leadership and managerial positions in economic and political organisations, said Ayesha and Farida.
To raise the number of women’s reserved seat in the parliament to 33 per cent and take initiative to hold direct election to the reserved seats and all local government levels were among the major objectives of the policy.
Ayesha and Farida said that they did not see any initiative to achieve the objectives.
We have been in the street from mid 1980s for direct elections to the reserve seats for women, but no one paid heed to the demand, said Farida.
The 350-seat parliament has 71 female lawmakers, including 50 from the reserved seats.
There are five female members including the prime minister in the cabinet.
Ayesha said that she did not see any effective step from the government to achieve the objective to appoint women at increased rate in the administrative, policy making and constitutional positions.
There are women among seven senior secretaries, seven women among 70 secretaries 70 and 78 women among 502 additional secretaries in the administration.
The state minister said that the participation of women in politics was on the rise. ‘As the education spread among women, they would get more positions in the administration,’ Meher Afroj said.
Increasing of women’s reserved seats in parliament and direct election to the reserved seats will take time, she said.
Source: New Age