Gender Equality In Bangladesh Essay

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Amid the chaos wrought by political instability and the rise of homegrown jihadist terrorism, Bangladesh finally has something to celebrate this year. In late October, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its latest Global Gender Gap Index that saw Bangladesh emerge as South Asia’s top performer. It ranked 72 out of a total of 144 countries, in the process moving up 19 spots from 2006 when the last report was published. But big data can be deceiving. Though Bangladesh has made serious strides in bridging gender inequality, most noticeably through political empowerment, there remain glaring cracks. Analyzing the WEF report in isolation is also counterintuitive. Especially since the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2014 ranked …show more content…

A survey of media sources last year by independent watchdog Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS) uncovered an astonishing bias against women. Of the 3000 news items reviewed over a two-month period, “Only 16 percent of newspaper stories, 14 percent of television news, and 20 percent of radio news considered women as subjects or interviewed them.” Additionally, less than eight percent of these items had women as protagonists. Print media findings fared the worst, where only 0.03 percent of all bylined stories were penned by women. And most alarmingly, only one percent of the 3000 news items reviewed addressed gender …show more content…

To this end, it runs programs focused on three key areas. First, promoting dialogue between men and women on homestead issues like family planning and health, and funding mass media campaigns highlighting the importance of female education. Two, expanding the role of women in agriculture by training them to use the latest technologies, thereby increasing crop yield that directly translates into higher household income. Third, helping the Bangladeshi government rigorously implement the domestic violence bill and training “human rights defenders” to monitor them

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