INTERNATIONAL Women's Day was observed with justified fanfare on Monday. In these past many years, there has been a growing awareness about the place of women in the Bangladesh social context, given particularly the perceived strides they have been making in a number of important areas. One can cite here the role women have been playing in such areas as micro-credit, especially in projects that aim at making them a factor in the household economy. At another level, there is the reality of Bangladesh's women turning to entrepreneurship through coming together in developing and promoting their individual as well as collective business enterprises. Additionally, women have been making their presence felt in some other vital areas, among which can be cited the arts and literature. In the recent past, women's contributions to literature have without question been a matter of pride for the nation.
So there are all the causes for us to conclude that in Bangladesh women have been making progress in their diverse fields. And yet there are certain glaring facts which must be pointed out about our inability to ensure for women a place commensurate with their skills within our social framework at this point. And in this context we could not but note that Bangladesh's women are yet to find themselves in a position where they can involve themselves in policy making or engage in the decision-making process. That remains, despite the clear advances women have made in education and professional expertise, a clear preserve of men in this country. It is here that substantive progress needs to be made. Moreover, there is the stark reality that despite women being a major factor in production, their contribution in most instances remains ill-recognised. One clear hint of this comes through the fact that women receive pretty low wages, so much so that they get half the wages generally paid to men. Discrimination thus remains a potent factor where women's proper role as factors of production is concerned. One other truth that could not be lost sight of is that the rate of unemployment for women is double that in the case of men. And this despite the fact that in the non-formal sector the degree and quality of work women do is stupendous and cannot be valued in terms of money. Their contribution to GDP remains a sadly unacknowledged reality.
Any observance of International Women's Day in Bangladesh cannot also fail to take account of the regularity of violence women are subjected to. That happens on both the domestic and social fronts. Women, especially in the rural regions, are all too often prey to torture and myriad instances of harassment over dowry and the like. On the bigger social scale, incidents of acid throwing remain a big source of worry for us. Tales of rape and murder of women, despite the gallant efforts being made by women's organizations and other bodies to improve conditions, continue to cause worries. In such light, International Women's Day could not but be a clarion call for us to do more in terms of making Bangladesh's women part of mainstream society, in that broad sense of the meaning.