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Presentation On

Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women ( MDG-03)

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Empowerment of women, also called gender empowerment, has become a significant topic of debate in regards to development and economics. Entire nations, businesses, communities, and groups can benefit from the implementation of programs and policies that accept the concept of women empowerment. Empowerment is one of the main practical concerns when addressing human rights and development. Gender empowerment can be measured through the Gender Empowerment Measure, or the GEM. The GEM shows women’s participation in a given nation, both politically and economically. Gem is calculated by tracking “the share of seats in parliament held by women; of female legislators, senior officials and managers; and of female profession and technical workers; and the gender disparity in earned income, brilliant economic independence.”

Gender and Primary Education

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The MDG target was set for 2005 to achieve gender parity in primary enrollment and it has been achieved. During the last 15 years, the primary school enrollment has increased 1.4 times from 11.9 million in 1990 to16.2 million in 2005. Girls' enrollment in primary education in 1990 was 45 percent and reached 47 percent in 1995. The trend shows that in the subsequent five years a gradual increase in the girls enrollment happened which was 49 percent in 2000 while gender parity has been achieved in 2005

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The secondary education enrollment of girls in rural areas has increased gradually, from 46 percent to 53 percent during 1995 to 2000, whereas it has declined to 52 percent by the next five years. Boy's enrollment has declined gradually from 54 to 47 percent between 1995 to 2000. However, it has increased by one percent in the next five years.

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Gender and Adult Literacy

The adult literacy rate (15 years and above) has increased from 35.3 percent in 1991 to 52.8 percent in 2006. In 1991 the rate was 44.3 percent for males and 25.8 percent for females (i.e.; 18.5 percentage points less for females). In 2006, this rate increased to 48.4 percent for females, the gap being 9.8 percentage points against females. Therefore, despite the general improvement in school enrollments, a large disparity continues to exist between adult-male and adult-female literacy rates.

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Although VAW (Violence Against Women) has not been considered as one of the indicator nonetheless to achieve true empowerment for women this component need to be taken into consideration. The worst form of sign of discrimination, devaluation and injustice takes place in terms of VAW. Such violence takes place both in public space and within the household. The occurrence of family violence is common and cuts across society, religion and class groups. In most cases the incidence of domestic violence often goes unreported therefore it is difficult to obtain statistics on this. Many more cases are known to go unreported due to fears of social dishonor, emotional and financial insecurity and the lack of support mechanisms.

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Another major area of concern is low female engagement in non-agricultural wage employment. The situation of women in non-farm employment depicts a discouraging situation. However this report has taken into consideration the total number of women working in BGMEA regard to projection of women in non- agricultural sector. The projection of women in non-agricultural employment (using 1995 as base year) shows much discouraging situation. During the last ten years population aged 15 years and above engaged in non-agricultural employment has increased 1.4 fold, from 19,089,000 in 1995-96 to 26,631,000 in 2005-06. During the same ten years the increase in male engagement has been 1.5 fold, while the same for females has not been changed and remained at low level.

Women in Non-Agricultural Wage EmploymentWomen in Non-Agricultural Wage Employment

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The situation of women empowerment and gender equality is most deplorable when one looks into the share of women in the highest policy making elected body - the National Parliament.

National level primary enrollment shows that Bangladesh has achieved gender parity by 2005. However, regional variation in terms of primary enrollment exists; Barisal is yet to achieve desired position while negative growth for Rajshahi and Khulna exists. Thus more concentration is required to strengthening –primary education projects, programmed in above mentioned divisions. In addition, strengthen opportunities for post –primary education for girls while meeting commitments to universal education.

Girls increased enrollment in secondary schools has been a significant phenomenon in Bangladesh. The challenge is to sustain the twin objectives of the FSSAP in keeping increasing number of girl students in secondary schools and retain them until graduation. Regional and urban –rural variation in terms of secondary enrollment requires special attention. To maintain the impressive enrollment of girls in secondary school effective continuation of secondary education projects are required.

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  The situation of women in non agricultural employment depicts much discouraging situation. The challenge is to involve women more in to productive income generating work to ensure improvement in livelihood to empower them. Further, actions in regard to women’s employment mentioned in PRSPII need to be effectively implemented.

Women’s engagement in political leadership is also not encouraging. In the national arena, majority women’s network lobbied throughout the 2001 for direct elections for women for Parliamentary seats. Mobilization around the issue took great impetus after the existing provision for women members (allowing for 30 women to be nominated by elected members of parliament) lapsed in 2001.The challenge is to have farsighted policy interventions. Therefore awareness, mobilization programmed to encourage direct involvement of women in mainstream politics is needed. Holistic policy interventions include amendment of laws, promoting women candidates nominations by political parties.

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Finance

Educating girls increasing. Literacy rates among women increasing. Increasing women’s labor force participation and strengthening labor

policies affecting women. Improving women’s access to land and other resources promoting

women’s political rights and participation. Expanding reproductive health programs and family support policies.

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Government policy is to remove gender gaps from the country’s social and economic life and bring about greater women empowerment .To that end, different programmed need to be adopt by government and non-government levels. The programmed include:

Improvement of food security among poor women  Establishment of Women’s Training Academy Day Care Programmed for children of working women Building hostels for working women Women’s agricultural training institute; women’s handicraft and

agriculture training centre; safe housing project for women and youth female

Day Care Centre for children of working women in district towns, and safe housing and vocational training centre for poor female children

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