\\\'BD makes remarkable progress in well-being of women and children\\\'

Bangladesh has made a remarkable progress in many areas of the well-being of women and children, but large disparities still remain from its one part to another and from rich to poor, said a joint study on Sunday.
The study carried out by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and UN Children Fund (UNICEF) shows the concerning state of stunted children as well as poor prevalence of child marriage where large disparities remain between households from different geographical regions, rural and urban households with different wealth and education level of mothers.
The survey titled 'Progotir Pathey' (road to development): Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2012-13 was released at a ceremony in Dhaka. Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal released it as the chief guest. State Minister for Finance and Planning MA Mannan and Secretary of Statistics and Information Division (SID) Kaniz Fatema were present as the special guests.
Director General of BBS Mohammad Abdul Wazed chaired the launching ceremony and UNICEF Representative Edouard Beigbeder attended it as the guest of honour.
The survey that covered a total of 70 social indicators of which 16 millennium development goals (MDGs) found that country's challenges still remain in taking timely initiative of breastfeeding, reduction of child and infant mortality, preschool attendance and checking dropouts.
The concerning part is stunt among children under five. While overall 42 per cent under-5 children were stunted in the country, more than half of them (52.8) belong to poorest households. In comparison, 27 per cent children from the richest group were found stunt.
Eastern districts were found to have higher levels of stunting while Meherpur has the least and Netrakona has the highest proportion of stunted children.
The infant mortality rate in Bangladesh is 46 per 1000 live births and under-5 mortality rate is 58 per 1000 live births.
"Substantial disparities exist along the dimensions of education, living standards and between different divisions for this estimate," the BBS-UNICEF said in its summery.
Children in the poorest households are four times as likely to die before reaching one and five years of age compared to children living in the richest households, it added. The survey found that three in five breastfed babies get it within one hour of birth, but early initiation of breastfeeding is still low. More than half of 0-5-month-old babies exclusively breastfed with Dhaka as lowest position Chittagong as highest position.
In the case of birth attended by skilled health personnel, 43.5 per cent get service during delivery, but mothers from the poorest households get it only in 26.5 per cent cases and rich mothers in 72.8 per cent of cases.
Though deliveries attended by skilled health personnel is in general more prevalent in western part of the country as compared to the eastern part, Feni and Bandarban districts show respectively highest and lowest portions of deliveries attended by skilled personnel.
Prevalence of child marriage continues to be high with about 52.4 per cent of women of age 20-24 getting married before the age of 18 years and 18.1 per cent getting married before 15 years. Every three women out of five of 20-49 years get married before 18 while almost one in four before age 15.
The joint survey was conducted in 64 districts between December 2012 and April 2013 with engaging 224 field survey personnel to cover 51,895 households.
    smunima@yahoo.com