The Right To Paid Work For Bangladeshi Women
The
right to paid work and productive employment is crucial to women’s
economic autonomy and empowerment. It is necessary not only to support and
supplement family income, but is an opportunity for them to participate
equally in the mainstream of economic life with heightened self-confidence
and self-esteem.
Research shows that women’s income and wages translate into significant benefits for the children and family. In the household context, a woman’s paid employment influences her status within the family and gives her a greater role in decision-making, and in establishing social ties and networks beyond the family. The case for women’s equal access to work and employment can no longer be disputed.
Saida, Nilibala and Yasmin are from villages in Dinajpur Upazila in Rajshahi region. They are very eager and enthusiastic to learn new skills, find work and be employed.
“We would like to take part in some training that will help us get an income, but we are not really sure what we should do as a profitable business, and there are no programmes for us here. Also there are few possibilities for us to get any wage employment,” they say.
Saida, Nilibala and Yasmin are highly motivated women. They are participants of a pilot project currently underway in the Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna regions, in eight Upazilas, 40 villages and reaching 1,200 rural women.
The project “Skills Training and Employment Promotion for Poor Women through Strengthening the Technical Training Centres” is executed by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Technical assistance is being provided by the ILO and funding from the UNDP. Seven partner NGOs have been selected to cover the eight Upazilas and are collaborating with the project. They form an important link between rural women clients and government institutions.
The project aims to promote market oriented employment for women with an emphasis on non-conventional trades and occupations. In this context it is piloting and adapting ILO’s Community-Based Training (CBT) methodology for employment and income generation.
Bangladeshi women
disadvantaged in the labour market
Women have made great
strides in the labour market and the figures are there to prove it: they
account for 51 percent of the workforce, they make up 80 percent of
garment workers and they are emerging as active entrepreneurs, owners and
managers of small enterprises and businesses.
But despite these gains, more than three quarters of employed women are unpaid family workers, particularly in the agricultural sector in rural areas. While employment has expanded for women in the garment sector, women workers are confined to the lower echelons of the industry in insecure low skilled jobs with minimal scope of upward mobility, and often work in poor conditions.
As entrepreneurs, women continue to
face severe constraints in their access to training, markets, technology
or finance/credit.
The CBT strategy
The
CBT approach adapted by the project is distinct and holistic. The strategy
is to first identify market and employment opportunities and then design
flexible modular training courses that are provided to women at the
locations nearest to them and at a time that is convenient.
The emphasis is on practical skills training, and flexibility that allows women to fit in and manage their household responsibilities. In addition to the training, a critical component of this strategy is post-training support to ensure that trained women are linked with identified work or business opportunities, that training is effectively utilized, and linkages are facilitated with the market and with credit sources from MFIs and NGOs for women to start or expand their businesses.