Social attitude needs to change to empower women
Speakers at a programme held yesterday emphasised providing proper environment, opportunities and facilities to ensure gender equality and empower women.
They were speaking at a programme titled “Chattogram Sanglap”, organised by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) at a local hotel in port city.
The theme was “Participation of civil institutions for democratic governance: Role of government in gender equality and women’s empowerment”.
Fahmida Khatun, executive director of CPD, suggested changing the social attitude toward women.
“In our society, when a woman works from dawn to midnight at home, she does not get proper recognition from her family or others,” she said.
“Our society deems household work worthless as women do not earn from them. But we will have to change this attitude and recognise their service to the family and society,” she added.
Lawmaker Wasika Ayesha Khan said women’s right to health is an important factor when it comes to their empowerment.
“We will have to ensure their proper health and there should be no discrimination regarding their right to health,” she said.
Taufiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow of CPD, gave the keynote presentation where he illustrated challenges in attaining gender equality and women’s empowerment in Chattogram district, especially in Sandwip upazila.
He said the upazila lacks adequate manpower at the family planning office, and there are no infrastructural facilities for caesarean section, which poses a threat to maternal health.
Many women do not know about the digital initiative taken by the government to stop repression of women and children, the senior research fellow of CPD said.
He further said child marriage rate of girls under 15 years in Chattogram is 3.4 percent, lower than the national rate (10.7), which is promising.
But when it comes to marriages of girls under 18 years, the district’s rate is lower, he added.
Taufiqul Islam Khan said mortality rate in the district is 19.9 percent, which is 1.7 percent lower than the national rate.
Social activist Jesmin Sultana Paru emphasised on a uniform family code for providing equal rights to women.
Munal Mahbub, senior vice-president of Chattogram Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said satellite clinics were not functioning in many areas.
“Those clinics should be fully functional to lower maternal mortality rate,” she said.
Monitoring cells should be formed to reduce the dropout rate of girls in schools, she stressed.
Lawmaker Aroma Dutta also spoke among others, while Centre for Policy Dialogue’s distinguished fellow Mustafizur Rahman chaired the event.
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