The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs has undertaken various measures to empower 5.1 million marginal women by creating new entrepreneurs and training them in ICT, health and nutrition, family planning and other sectors, reports BSS.
“As part of the ministry’s initiatives, we will create 100,000 new female entrepreneurs and provide ICT training to five million marginal and underprivileged women,” State Minister for Women and Children Affairs Fazilatun Nessa Indira told BSS.
She said a committee had been constituted for branding and implementing the programs across Bangladesh for women’s empowerment.
In the last 10 years, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken various steps to create women entrepreneurs and employment, aiming at women empowerment and poverty alleviation, according to BSS.
Bangladesh tops in South Asia in terms of women empowerment.
According to a ministry official, around 15,339,000 underprivileged women took different trainings in ICT, health and nutrition, family planning and other sectors in the last 10 years.
He said 6.35 million female VGD beneficiaries received trainings on nutrition, health, income generating and social awareness, while 2.2 million maternal allowance beneficiaries joined 10-day training on health and nutrition.
Some 729,000 beneficiaries for nursing mother allowance took training on poverty alleviation, reduction of mother and child mortality rate, breastfeeding, nutrition, Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), importance of pregnancy services and family planning.
Highlighting the government’s various realistic and people-oriented projects, State Minister Indira said the government provided trainings on different trades for empowering women.
During Mujib Borsho (Mujib Year), five million marginal and underprivileged women will be empowered through training on information and communication technology (ICT), she said.
The government has given training to 3.34 million women on development, economic empowerment and oppression prevention since 2009.
Besides, some 2.5 million rural and urban women received ICT services and 217,440 underprivileged and destitute women got Income Generating Activities (IGA) training for economic resilience.
The Awami League government has introduced various laws and policies for development and empowerment of women in the country, the BSS reported.
The state minister said that it was Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who first talked about freedom of women and equality of men and women.
She said following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s directives, the ministry has undertaken a master plan to prevent child marriage and ensure women empowerment.
Everyone will have to work for creating awareness against child marriage in the country so that we can make Bangladesh free of child marriage,” the state minister said.
According to the Gender Gap Index produced by the World Economic Forum, the global gender parity stands at 68.6%, and the bottom 10 countries have close to 40% gender gap.
The Centre for Research and Information (CRI) says women’s participation in the workplace, leadership role in the political and social arenas and access to credit can be regarded as the empowerment of women.
It also says women empowerment is the reflection of gender equality, which is the precursor to moving the country forward, towards middle-income status and towards inclusive and sustainable development.
