Photo: Internet

In a country where everyone has an opinion about everything, no matter whether they understand the subject matter or not, it’s not surprising that we have a very active political field. In Bangladeshi society it seems like that women are in a good position in the political arena. Our two leading prime minister and leader of the opposition in Parliament were women.However, their high positions in politics do not reflect the whole scenario of women’s position in politics. Both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition were from political families which helped them to get into the leadership when there was a vacuum. The leading parties brought them in front and used the public sentiment to keep the party intact.

Since Bangladesh is an agriculture based country, with a Muslim majority, it is not always appreciated that women are considered as leaders. There is a common mentality of males dominating over the females. As a result of that, a lot of qualified women can’t make it in politics on their own. Of course there are very few exceptions to that. Gradually women’s participation in politics is increasing. Usually, they would be entering for promoting the issues which are unique to women only, i.e. women’s rights related issues. They have been pretty successful in furthering the cause of women starting with the women’s education back during the British Raj to current day worker’s rights.

The constitution of Bangladesh provides for formal equality of men and women.Women are entitled to the same fundamental rights as men. Article 10 of the Constitution ensures participation of women in all spheres of national life (Bangladesh constitutional amendment, 1979, article 10). Article 65(3) provides for reserved seats for women in the parliament and article 9 promotes the special representation of women in local government (Bangladesh constitutional amendment, 1979, article 65). Besides the participation of women in politics and urban governance, many programmes have been undertaken in local governments.Women comprise more than half of Bangladesh’s population. If there is ever going to be progress in any field, they need to be part of it. So, it is important to give proper acceptance and representation to women in the fields of politics.

Today we have women politician in our “Advisory Board” in Care-taker Government.The increasing political involvement has inspired women to contest for the Rural Union Council and Urban Municipal election (there are 1/3 seats reserved for women) more than before.Women’s participation in politics at national level and at local level is very much needed to strengthen democracy.