Primary school enrolment of girls reaches 99.4pc

The rate of enrolment of girls for primary education increased to 99.4 percent because of various steps taken by the government for the empowerment of women, according to a report of Center of Research and Information (CRI) published in September 2015.

The present government has introduced free education for girls up to the degree level, scholarships and stipend for female students and distribution of free textbooks among the students, the report mentioned.

Various programmes undertaken by the government for empowering women and removing gender disparity include creation of scopes and environment for women's employment and increasing facilities for their education and participation in the policymaking process, says the report titled "Empowering Women".

The initiatives taken for increasing women's participation in policymaking include making mandatory 20 percent seats for women in parliament, recruiting one-third female workers in local government organisations, sending female police to UN peacekeeping missions and increasing women's representation in local government bodies. Bangladesh has also attained UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in prevention of maternal mortality as the government has taken different steps.

It has increased maternity leave to six months from four months and set up 13,500 community clinics to ensure healthcare for all.

Other programmes of the government include prevention of early marriage, building awareness to eliminate domestic violence against women, making laws to stop the repression and creating scopes for them to take up challenging professions.

The government also formulated Women Development Policy in 2011 aiming to ensure 50 percent female participation in all economic activities by 2021.

The country has started getting benefits of the programmes undertaken and implemented by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the CRI report said.

As a report empowerment of women in Bangladesh has become a role model in the world. The country got "Women in Parliament Award" this year.