To hail the women’ achievement in politics Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS) and Institute for Environment and Development (IED) jointly organized a reception to congratulate 65 female members of the ninth parliament of Bangladesh. Female parliament members (MP) were accorded reception by presenting crests, address of honor and flower bouquets. Thirty one women MPs of Bangladesh Awami League (AL), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jatiya Party (JP) elected by direct vote and selected by the respective parties for reserved seats for women were present in the reception. Deputy leader of the parliament Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury and home minister Sahara Khatun were present among the prominent MPs.

Women lawmakers both from treasury and opposition benches unanimously vowed to work together for the betterment of the country’s women. Addressing the reception they unequivocally said no political differences could stop them from discharging their sacred duties for women empowerment and uphold their dignity in the male-dominated society.

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8th Issue

July - December Issue 2008

সম্পাদকীয়

মুমূর্ষু চটিবই আর তার বিপন্ন নারীরা : সুমন রহমান

জন বেচে খাই : দুই প্রজন্মের নারীশ্রমের ইতিহাস : নাসরিন সিরাজ এ্যানী

বাংলাদেশে নারীর ক্ষমতায়ন : অর্জন ও সম্ভাবনা : চিররঞ্জন সরকার

অবগুণ্ঠনে যৌনতা বাতচিতে দোনামনা : জোবাইদা নাসরীন

বেহাগা গ্রামে নিরক্ষর নারীদের সম্পৃক্ততায় একটি স্বেচ্ছাব্রতী শিক্ষা উদ্যোগ : মানিক মাহমুদ

‘আমি কি নারীবাদী?’ : নারীর প্রতি সহিংসতা’ গবেষণার অভিজ্ঞতা : ফাতেমা সুলতানা শুভ্রা

প্রতিবন্ধী নারীর অধিকার ও মর্যাদার প্রসঙ্গ : মূলস্রোতের নারী অধিকার প্রতিষ্ঠায় ভুলে-থাকা অ্যাজেন্ডা : ফয়সাল বিন মজিদ, মাহবুব কবীর

প্রাকৃতিক বিপর্যয় মোকাবেলায় নারীর অংশগ্রহণ : ফারজানা সুলতানা

7th Issue

January - June Issue 2008

সম্পাদকীয়

সাহিত্যের কোণঠাসা কন্যারা যখন ঘুরে দাঁড়ায় : বাংলা উপন্যাসে নারী ও বিবাহবিচ্ছেদ : মল্লিকা সেনগুপ্ত

আধুনিক কালের মুসলিম নারীদের লেখালেখির আদ্যকথা : শাহীন আখতার

লোকসংস্কৃতি র্চচায় নারী : মাসুদুল হক

জেন্ডারের আলোকে বাংলাদেশের শিক্ষাচিত্র : একটি বিশ্লেষণ : গৌতম রায়

বাংলাদেশে প্রত্নতাত্ত্বিক চর্চা ও লিঙ্গীয় আধিপত্য : একটি প্রাথমিক পাঠ : সরোয়ার বাশার ও অনন্যা জুলফিকার শাওলী

অর্মত্য সেনের ‘নিখোঁজ নারী’ তত্ত্ব : বাংলাদেশ প্রেক্ষিত : খালিদ সাইফুল্লাহ

সকলই তার হয় : মনীষা মজুমদার

মুসলিম পারিবারিক আইনের ব্যাখ্যা : ক্ষমতায়ন না নারীর ওপর খবরদারি? : আনিসুর রহমান

স্থানীয় সরকারে নারীর অবস্থান ও ভূমিকা : জেনিফার ফৌজি শীলা

নারী ও প্রগতি বাংলাদেশ নারী প্রগতি সংঘ (বিএনপিএস)-এর জেন্ডার বিষয়ক ষান্মাসিক বাংলা জার্নাল। জার্নাল সম্পর্কে আরো জানতে এখানে ক্লিক করুন। জার্নালের বিভিন্ন সংখ্যায় মুদ্রিত যেকোনো লেখা পড়তে নিচের সংখ্যাগুলো ভিজিট করুন।

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Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS) was set up in June 1986 by a group of committed professional and activist women who came forward to advocate alternative development processes that would give prime emphasis on the fundamental rights of the deprived and marginalized people of Bangladesh particularly women. Since then, the organization has been initiating programs positively causative to empowerment of women of all social categories in Bangladesh.
BNPS follows a bottom-up right-based approach linking community to the national level. In the process its role is the one of a catalyst and a facilitator. It is trying to create an environment for women and other marginalized groups to raise their voices and to claim their entitlements through a variety of activities, like awareness development, institution building, livelihood activities and reforms of different policies, system, institution and mindset. The congenial working environment, culture of co-operation and team work, non-hierarchical management with activist orientation is seen by all as an asset in BNPS. Read the rest of this entry »

BNPS has an ideological base with some core values. These are considered as guiding factors that contribute as essential elements in developing all the programs implemented by the organization. BNPS is neither an organization for subcontracting development projects nor an agency for supplying services to the customers. To be more precise, it believes development as intervention for social transformation. The followings are the core values of the organization:
Inclusion: BNPS makes every effort to bring all sections of societies, particularly the disadvantaged and marginalized groups, women, poor and minorities in the development program.
Plurality: BNPS promotes culture of plurality.
Secularism: BNPS believes and encourages secularism in every aspects of social and national level to eradicate disparity and discrimination to any religion. Read the rest of this entry »

So far BNPS has directly worked with around 140,000 women and over the period of time more than 500,000 people from different background involved with the efforts of BNPS, and it has been recognized as one of the most dynamic women organization in Bangladesh. BNPS is focusing on social, economical and political empowerment of women, policy reform, education reform, electoral reform, strengthening local governance and gender budget analysis. As a pioneer organization, BNPS introduced the question of gender in the education system in the year of 1993. In 2000, BNPS for the first time in the country, started national budget and PRSP analysis from gender perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

After 2001, BNPS had to gone through a turmoil situation-emotionally and physically challenging, transformative and tough journey due to state of affairs in the country. From January 2002 until 2004, it had to survive the harassment by the “powers that be” in the name of investigation by using different organs of government, raising different unfound allegations and accusations, initiating legal cases which also resulted in loss of freedom. In fact, all these forces targeted organization’s values of being secular, advocacy for women’s and other ethnic and religious sections rights and freedom of choices as citizen. To cope with the situation, BNPS had to adapt many changes in coping strategies. The challenge had been one of ‘not giving up’, yet being diligent and strategic, with no compromise on values. It low profiled itself and sustained the work of women’s empowerment work and continues to do Advocacy and networking nationally and internationally in collaboration with like-minded organizations, networks and individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Dr. Pratima Paul-Majumder

Empowerment of women is one of the national goals of Bangladesh. To achieve this goal, Bangladesh adopted various strategies like elimination of the gap between male and female, creating gainful employment for women, mainstreaming of women in the development process etc., in her Five-Year Plans and other national documents. But the policy makers are not much aware of the fact that none of these strategies will be successful in empowering women until and unless they are educated, since without education women can neither be employed gainfully nor can be integrated in the national development process. Education has multi-dimensional impacts on women and these impacts are influential in empowering women. Researches show that education has highly positive impact on both women’s productivity and their social and political power in the society.

It was found that woman’s wage rate increases by 10% for each extra year’s education (Human Development in South Asia 1998). Researches also show that investment on women’s education has a direct correlation with eradication of gender discrimination in various spheres of life. Path-breaking findings of an on-going research of BIDS reveal that women’s education is one of the most influential factors for breaking the stereotyped gender roles, which are the biggest stumble on the way of women’s social and economic empowerment. This research further shows that education raises confidence and aspiration of girl children more than that of their counterpart boy children.

Author: Dr. Pratima Paul-Majumder

Author: Dr. Pratima Paul-Majumder

Women are a part of the nation’s manpower. This manpower of Bangladesh has already shown its immense potential in different socio-economic sectors. Whatever development Bangladesh has achieved during the last decade has been made possible by controlling population growth, raising education level and by increasing its labor force participation rate. Available national statistics reveal that women played a dominant role in all these sectors. It has been found in various studies that even with limited access to productive resources, women have participated in the labour market in large number. Due to the participation of women in the labor force, the overall participation in the labor force has also multiplied in the past few years.

Women also have great potential as entrepreneurs, and this potential has been revealed in their efficiency to undertake a huge number of micro enterprises through using micro credit. Although women have minuscule access to big capital, findings show that they proved their efficiency in undertaking big enterprise too. It has been found that about 4 per cent of the garment factories are owned by women entrepreneurs (Paul-Majumder 2003). Thus, women constitute a potential group to undertake business venture. This potential should be reaped to the fullest extent not only for the well-being of the women folk of Bangladesh, but also for the development of the country.