Gender-friendly transportation needed for women
Urban women need safe and gender-friendly transportation system to ease their suffering, a workshop was told yesterday.
Speakers said women are increasingly entering the urban labour market in recent years, but they lack badly safe and reliable transportation system.
“To achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) and encourage the women to work, we have to ensure a safe and gender-friendly transportation system for them,” environment and forest secretary AHM Rezaul Kabir told the workshop on “Gender Issues in Urban Transport” at the BIDS auditorium.
Director general of BIDS (Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies) Dr Quazi Shahabuddin chaired the discussion, which was addressed among others by Mohi Uz Zaman Quazi, senior transport engineer of World Bank.
Salma Chaudhuri Zohir, research fellow of BIDS presented a keynote paper at the workshop.
“From readymade garments to corporate businesses, constructions worker and to news presenter, in all sectors the number of working women has increased,” Salma said.
She noted women are adding value to the national economy.
In her keynote paper she observed Bangladeshi urban women have less access to the public transport and suffered a lot from social insecurity.
She asked the government to ensure at least 25 percent reserve seats in public transports for women.
Quazi Shahabuddin said the government should encourage more women to enter the economic activities. But, he said, women need easy access to all social services, including transportation.
Mohi Uz Zaman Quazi urged the government to buy more two-door buses so that the women could use the front door.
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