Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday rightly said that women's position in the society would not be elevated without their empowerment. The premier said this at the inaugural ceremony of the two-day International Women Peace and Security-WPS Seminar-2022, jointly organized by the Armed Forces Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bangladesh Police.
It needs no mentioning that over the last decade under the able leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Bangladesh has become a role model for women empowerment in the world. Half of the population of Bangladesh is women and their economic participation has increased remarkably over the past decade.
The incumbent government has been working relentlessly to ensure and enhance women’s participation in all the sectors.Whether it is, business, engineering, media, aviation, sports or handicraft women have set their foothold in every field of work or profession. Women in Bangladesh are leading from the front in the country’s sustainable development.
Necessary steps should be taken
to remove all kinds of barriers and
discrimination that prevent women
from realizing their full potential
Representation of girls in high school level is similar to that of boys. But at the higher education level, this scenario is quite discouraging. Therefore, a lot more needs to be done if we want to see our women climbing the socio-economic ladders side by side with their male counterparts.
It is disconcerting to note that still a section of people in our society has a perception that women are less empowered than men. Hitherto rape, sexual harassment, wage discrimination, domestic violence and social discrimination against women are common phenomena in Bangladesh. Still in many spheres of life we encounter gender discrimination. Therefore, being vocal about gender discrimination and violence against women has become a part of our social responsibility. Women’s contribution to Bangladesh’s progress in different areas is indispensable. In order to sustain the tempo of current progress of Bangladesh, women’s participation in all sectors is inevitable.
In order to make this country self-reliant, pragmatic measures are needed to be taken to empower women. In this regard, necessary steps should be taken to remove all kinds of barriers and discrimination that prevent women from realizing their full potential. Also, participation of women needs to be enhanced and reinforced in decision making processes.