Work together for women's development

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the global community to work together to create a safer environment for women and girls alongside empowering them as agents of social transformation.

“And to achieve that, we need sincere commitments and strong leadership,” she told the inaugural function of the Global Women Leaders' Forum at Bulgaria's National Art Gallery as the keynote speaker.

“Let's today renew our commitment to make this world a better place for all; a better place for women, where we can live with dignity, free from all fear. Join me in saying: We Can Do It!” Hasina said.

Referring to the adoption of a transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in New York last year, she said the new development agenda gave a strong emphasis on gender equality and empowerment of women.

Expressing her strong commitment to establish gender equality in Bangladesh, Hasina said, “I'm committed to breaking all barriers to achieve equality of men and women.”

She mentioned that one of the major steps taken by her government was to formulate and implement an ambitious and groundbreaking National Women Development Policy, which guarantees equal opportunity for women.

“In this policy, we've given highest priority to education and economic and social self-reliance of women,” she said.

Hasina said her government spends over 2 percent of GDP for social protection coverage and the most of the beneficiaries of social protection are the less fortunate and destitute women.

Despite significant advancement, the prime minister said, “We also have challenges. We're yet to fully succeed in stopping the incidents of violence against women, child marriage or trafficking of women and girls.”

She told her audience that her government took strong steps to end these social evils through a number of strict laws and administrative measures.

Elaborating the government measures for the development of female education, the PM said her government had made education free for girls up to Grade 12 and has plans to make it free up to the tertiary level.

She said that nearly 17.2 million students from primary to post-graduate levels have been brought under various stipend programmes.

Besides, she said women represent nearly 85 percent of around 4.5 million workforce in the RMG sector and their participation was also growing in other sectors and professions like the civil service, the judiciary, armed forces, elite security force and other technical professions.

She said the print and electronic media are now vibrant with the presence of many women journalists, sportswomen excelling in cricket, football and even in mountaineering and they are serving in UN peacekeeping operations.

“Bangladesh is perhaps the only country in the world today that has got women as its Prime Minister and Leader of the House, Deputy Leader of House, Leader of the Opposition, and the Speaker,” Hasina said.

She also expressed her personal gratitude to Unesco for honouring her with the Unesco “Tree of Peace” Award, which was given for promoting girls' education and empowerment.

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labour and Social Policy Ivaylo Kalfin, Minister of Energy Temenuzka Petkova, Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Lilyana Pavlova, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, Bulgaria's National Assembly Chairwoman Tsetska Tsacheva and CEO of Siemens Bulgaria and Chairperson of Council of Women in Business in Bulgaria Boriana Manolova also spoke at the event.