Women's Participation in Decision Making Process of Local Government in Bangladesh: AStudy of Nine Union Parishads

Md. Nazmul Alom Tipu (alom.tipu@gmail.com)
Public Administration, Jahangirnagar University
September, 2015
 
Currently I am working as a Lecturer at Sylhet Agricultural University, Bangladesh.This work done when I was a student of mentioned university.
 

Abstract

To achieve any development initiatives role of women’s are indispensable especially country like Bangladesh which have huge numbers of women’s human resource. The recent local government reforms initiate to empower women’s in the grassroots level and has had create reserved quotas for women’s in the Union Parishad and they elected through adult franchise in competitive election. In context of local government, women’s concerns had surfaced intermittently and were highlighted in the government reform agenda as evident in the last Local Government Reform of 1997. As a consequential effect Local Government (Union Parishad) Amendment Act 1997 was promulgated. It provides 3 directly elected women members in the Union Parishad from 3 reserved seats. However, there are serious lacunas in gender balancing both in terms of governance policy and reform agenda. Union Parishad is the most popular democratic institution at the grassroots level. Therefore, the state of women’s participation at this level is crucial and deserves special attention to empower them as participation and empowerment are closely related. In Bangladesh, women’s are always deprived in their field of work. The social structure of Bangladesh still work pessimistically regarding political participation of women’s as consequence women’s do not participate in resolution construction process actively. The research find out causes of mistreating women’s regarding their duty and their role. And find problems that faced by the women’s representatives during execute their task in the Union Parishad. The study also provides necessary steps need to solve the problem to ensure women’s participation and to ensure proper development in Bangladesh.