Drop in female workforce implies unfriendly working environment

The drop in female workforce participation in the job market and their shift to home-based businesses reflect an unfriendly working environment, speakers observed at a consultation, urging steps by all concerned from now on in line with the ILO Convention 190.

As the government ratified the Convention of the International Labour Organisation last month, the speakers said civil society members, non-governmental organisations, development partners, and the private sector should work together to be pressure groups to the government to formulate and amend related laws and policies for eliminating violence and harassment in the world of work.

Winrock International in collaboration with Bangladesh Institute of Labour Statistics (BILS) organised the consultation with private sector on 'Making the workplace more women-friendly' at a city hotel on Wednesday.

Switzerland-backed Ashshash Project extended support for the event while The Business Standard was the media partner.

Director (Research and Development) of BILS Nazma Yesmin presented the keynote paper and BILS Executive Director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed discussed on the way forward.

Representatives from different government organisations, local and international NGOs, the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, ILO, SME Foundation, Partex, Transcom, bdjob.com, BGMEA and BKMEA spoke on the occasion.

Country Representative and Project Director Ashshash Winrock International Dipta Rakshit and Senior Manager Md GF Rabbani also addressed.

The keynote paper highlighted the achievement of women in the job market in different sectors and said the increase in women participation in the labour market to 42 per cent from 34 per cent has not been reflected in creating of working environment in mills and factories.

Despite the increase, women's inclusivity in the labour market is not satisfactory compared to men and 97 per cent women are working in the informal sector as sales girls, clerical and elementary workers.

Only five per cent women are in managerial and various professional positions. Some 926,000 women workers are completely unemployed.

The BILS executive director said men and women discrimination exists due to lack of social advancement in line with the country's economic advancement from lower to middle income country.

He underlined the need for formulating a national minimum standard of workplace as there is no standard of working environment maintained for both men and women in many backward and forward linage offices, government offices including city corporation, for its all kinds of staff.

The BILS chief also said women in that case are more vulnerable than men, laying importance on changing the mindset of 'any job is better than no job' for improving the working environment.

Besides, from his experiences talking with cross section people while in labour reform commission, he said said there is no law for the officials, young professionals, researchers, engineers etc. also no facilities are provided for safe transportation and housing in the country.

Deputy Secretary of MoLE Nilufar Yasmin said the government has already started working on making the ILO Convention 190 after ratifying it on October 22.

Other speakers highlighted the issues like low pay, lack of recognisation of women's works, absence of child care centre and breast-feeding corner at workplaces.

Matters related to maternity leave along with giving adequate time for reinstating mother into work are still found to be causes for leaving jobs by majority women.

They also laid importance on creating awareness from policy level to men, women and family level to sensetising them the need for changing mindsets on looking into people as human being.

smunima@yahoo.com