Bangladesh is regarded as the role model for the women empowerment in the world – State Minister Meher Afroze MP at UN.

UsaNewsOnline.Com, New York : “Bangladesh has achieved remarkable success in advancing women under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and been regarded as the role model for the empowerment of women in the world” says Meher Afroze MP, State Minister, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Bangladesh while she was making the country statement at the ongoing sixty-first session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which is being held from 13-24 March at UN Headquarters. The theme of this session, ‘women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work’; is very timely.

In her statement, she mentioned, “The journey to promote empowerment of women began since the independence of Bangladesh. Policies and institutional measures were undertaken for the development of women under the leadership of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman”.

In this meeting, she enumerated the measures taken by the present government to ensure the gender equality, political, social and economic empowerment of women of Bangladesh. She said, “Considering the inclusive development of women and to establish gender equality we enacted ‘The national Women Development Policy 2011’”.

Mentioning the improvement of the working environment of women, the State Minister said, “we have established day care facilities for the children of the working women, strengthened the Social Safety Net Programmes for vulnerable women and for promoting the women entrepreneurs at the grassroots level, Joyeeta (victorious women) a shopping mall has been established in the capital to facilitate the marketing of their products without any middle men”. “During the last 3 years 1,69,711 women were employed in foreign countries and they sent a large amount of remittances back to our country” – the State Minister mentioned.

Underscoring International recognition of Bangladesh in women empowerment sector, the State Minister said, “According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2014, Bangladesh ranks 10th out of 142 countries in political empowerment and was awarded the prestigious women in Parliaments Global Forum Award in 2015. Our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was also awarded Planet 50-50 Champion” by UN-Women and “Agent of Change Award” by Global Partnership Forum on 21 September, 2016”.

The State Minister reaffirm Bangladesh’s commitment to the full, effective and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which have been reflected in recent normative milestones, including the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change the New Urban Agenda and the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. “We believe, the success of achieving MDGs with regard to gender parity will help us to implement SDG-5, Gender Equality, in Bangladesh before 2030” – she further added.

She urges all member states to take a vow, once again, to achieve gender parity in all aspect of our life and to make the world a better place for all women.

State Minister Meher Afroze MP is leading the Bangladesh delegation to the 61^st CSW session. Ms Nasima Begum NDC, secretary, Ministry of women and children affairs, Md. Ziaul Islam, Secretary, Ministry of Planning and six others government official are joined the session as members of the delegation.