Women’s participation in the local elections has reduced by half in the past few years, according to a survey revealed at a seminar yesterday.
A total of 1,507 women contested at the upazila polls this year, which is 48% less than the number of women contestants in 2009 upazila polls – 2,900.
The rate of decrease is 50% over the period of 1997-2014. In upazila parisad elections in 1997, 1,80,000 women contested from 13,500 constituencies, while around 1,24,000 women contested in 2003, and only 90,000 in 2011.
Organised jointly by Khan Foundation, Democracy Watch, PRIP Trust and Steps Towards Development, the seminar was held at the CIRDAP auditorium in the capital. The research was conducted as part of the project Aparajita – Political Empowerment of Women.
The survey was conducted on 138 female representatives from 62 districts. Among them, 47 were elected and 91 were losing candidates.
Advocate Rokhsana Khondker, executive director of Khan Foundation, said: “Around half our population are not only women but also children. The overall development of a country is not possible without its women’s development.”
Ranjan Karmakar, executive director of Steps Towards Development who also presented the research paper, pointed out the decreasing trend in women’s participation in elections and urged them to come forward and overcome all obstacles.
Women representatives from different districts discussed the problems they faced before and after the elections at the seminar.
Around 37% of the respondents mentioned financial crisis as major obstacle in participating in the elections, 35% mentioned lack of political support, 14% cited threats by opponents, 8% mentioned being unable to move freely and 6% listed religious taboos as another major obstacle.
Rasheda K Chowdhury, executive director of Campaign for Popular Education, said women were victims of men’s economic and muscle power.
“Local government must work effectively for the political empowerment of women,” she said.