Economic self-reliance accelerates empowerment of rural women

The process of women empowerment progresses at accelerated rate after achieving self- reliance by thousands of distressed women in recent years though they lived in utter poverty even a decade ago in rural areas. Abject poverty forced these rural women to live amid untold miseries along with their children and other family members and now they have become economically self-reliant, speakers said at a programme in Rangpur on Wednesday. A number of successful women said that it became possible only after attaining economic self- reliance through hard endevours at their own or under assistances of various social safely-net programmes of the government. They said the process of achieving sustainable socioeconomic uplift and women empowerment could be accelerated further by properly developing the country’s rural womenfolk and empowering them with equal rights at all levels. Head of Programme Coordination of RDRS Bangladesh Monjusree Saha said the overall socioeconomic condition of the rural women, both in the mainland and remote char areas, has been improved significantly during the past five years. She suggested for further strengthening of the local government bodies through empowering female union members and upazila female vice chairmen to accelerate development and empowerment of the women in building a middle income Bangladesh. District Relief and Rehabilitation Officer of Rangpur Abdus Salam said the distressed rural women have achieved the tremendous success following massive pragmatic steps taken by the government for complete eradication of poverty once for all, according to BSS.