Women Empowerment in Rural Bangladesh: The Role of Local Institutions

Similar to the rest of the world, women empowerment in rural Bangladesh is growing as one of the most critical issues need answering very soon. Several attempts have been undertaken by different government organizations, local government institutions, and non-government organizations in recent years to empower the women in various facets- social, economic and political for the least. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the women empowerment status in a rural area in Khulna district, Bangladesh. Physical surveys were conducted among the households in the Chakrakhali village under Jalma Union in Batiaghata Upazilla of Khulna district. The samples were randomly drawn from the families in the area irrespective of economic, social or religious characteristics. All the respondents were adult women- either the household head of women lead household or the housewife of the family. The social, economic, and political empowerment status of the women in the village was evaluated through the study. The findings from the survey indicate the women are empowered mostly in the economic realm, followed by social empowerment. The political empowerment of the women of that village found to be absent in most cases. The survey results also indicated that the household heads hinder the political and social empowerment status of the women in a male-lead household. In these types of families, despite the monetary or other supports form the institutions is delivered to the women, they are not the own making the decisions. It is found that a lot of the choices of the women are influenced by the household head, mainly to borrow money from micro-credit organizations. The understanding between government organizations and women are not in good shape as women are not interested in the functions of these organizations in most of the cases. Mainly the non-government organizations (i.e., CSS, BUREAU Bangladesh, ASA, PROSHIKA, BRAC, Grameen Bank, etc.) work for the villagers, and women are more concerned about the activities of these institutions. However, it was found from the study that women are not being benefitted and mainstreamed through empowerment activities by these institutions.