Providing job opportunities to women

Poverty is pervasive in most of developing and underdeveloped countries in the present world though politicians promise to alleviate it. The social scientists term poverty as a trap for the poor especially for women and children in some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
"Poverty trap is a bad equilibrium for a family, community, or nation, involving a vicious cycle in which poverty and underdevelopment breed more poverty and underdevelopment, often from one generation to the next", said Todaro and Smith. Poverty, according to the DFID and the World Bank, is the lack of access to resources by individuals. It leads to a state of powerlessness, helplessness and despair, inability to subsist and protect oneself against economic shocks, social, economic, political and cultural discrimination and marginalisation among others.
Poverty in Bangladesh has multi-dimensions and includes inadequate access to government utilities, water and sanitation services, environmental issues, poor infrastructure, illiteracy and ignorance, poor health, ill-nutrition, insecurity, social and political exclusion.  
The literacy rate of Bangladesh is male 61.3 per cent and female 52.2 per cent and the average rate of literacy is 56.8 per cent.  It means that 43.2 per cent of its population, that is, 69.12 million people of Bangladesh are illiterate according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. It's really sad that 43.2 per cent people of an independent country cannot read and write in their mother language in the 21st century when majority of the countries of developed world have 100 per cent literacy rate. Illiteracy and lack of skilled manpower are causes for poverty. Total population of Bangladesh (census up to 2013) is 163 million and the break-up between males and females is 79 million and 87 million respectively. The illiteracy rate in case of females is higher than males.
In the skill development programmes, female workers especially living in rural areas are far behind. In addition to illiteracy, the other main causes of extreme poverty in Bangladesh are inequitable distribution of income and wealth, low economic growth, high unemployment rate, high population growth, low-per-capita-energy, low human resource development, poor infrastructures, natural disasters and effects of climate change.
Though Bangladesh has achieved some remarkable success in reducing poverty during the last two decades, still it has a long way to go to eradicate it. More than one-third of its population, that is, 54.33 million people, mostly rural women and children, live below the extreme poverty level. It is a big number of population equivalent to total population of about 8 small EU countries. Alleviation of poverty should be the first and foremost duty and it should be on the top-most agenda of the state policymakers of the country.
The Bangladesh society is traditionally male- dominated. Man is the head of the family and he has full freedom and control to do anything. Usually, women have less freedom; her father has authority over childhood, her husband has authority during her youth. And in the old age, her son has authority over her.  In these circumstances, women obviously lead a secluded life indoor. Confined to homes, women are assigned to perform domestic chores, bearing and rearing children and serving husbands and the elders and cannot contribute anything else. The employment of working female workers has increased in recent times due to increase of demand of female workers in readymade garments (RMG) and textile industries. About 4 million female workers now work in RMG and textile industries. This employment has boosted the economy and reduced poverty to some extent but the overall economic scenario has remained unresolved. The wages of the female workers are meagre and the lowest in the world. There is no savings for the workers after meeting the two basic needs--food and shelter. They are unable to provide education and health care to their children and their off-springs remain in poverty.
Economic hardships and unemployment push the rural women to migrate to big cities for jobs, better lives but face odd situation due to non-availability of jobs to survive. Most of them face problems in managing food and shelter and are compelled to live in poor and unhygienic conditions in slums and squatters. The poor urban people, especially women, are living in poor quality households with inadequate provision of water, sanitation and drainage along with minimal or no social services or basic infrastructure. Under these circumstances, their livelihoods are found to be under continuous threat.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), laws on marriage, separation, and divorce in Bangladesh discriminate against women and girls in abusive marriages, often driving them into poverty when their marriages fall part. "With many women precariously housed or struggling to feed themselves when their marriages break down, Bangladesh should immediately reform its personal laws, fix its family courts, and provide state assistance to poor women", the HRW said.
Energy poverty afflicts people in developing countries whose well-being is negatively affected by very low consumption of energy, use of dirty or polluting fuels, and excessive time spent in collecting fuel to meet basic needs. According to the Energy Poverty Action Initiative of the World Economic Forum, "Access to energy is fundamental to improving quality of life and is a key imperative for economic development''. Also ''lacking access to energy affect health, well-being and income'', says Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Bangladesh is an energy-starving country. About 48 per cent of its population doesn't have electricity connection. Non-availability of power and energy is one of the major causes for poverty. Only 62 per cent of the population has access to electricity with a per capita of 321kWh per annum. Provision of electricity will help create job opportunities and reduce poverty to some extent.
The East Asian countries like South Korea and Malaysia have given more emphasis to increase the employment of women. According to OECD data, only 55 per cent of South Korean women aged 15-64 are in the labour force, compared to an average of 65 per cent in the advanced economies. South Korea's male labour force participation rate, by contrast, stands at about 77 per cent - close to the OECD average of 79 per cent. South Korea's first female President Park's government announced in February 2014 three-year plan for economic innovation aiming to raise female employment rate to 62 per cent by 2017.
In Bangladesh, most of the workers, especially female workers, are engaged in informal, low-income jobs with limited productivity. Education and training to make the huge women population skilled, are needed for employment in more productive areas. Education will help reduce population growth that is also one of the causes of poverty. Bangladesh is a small country with fewer natural resources. This country has huge human-capital -men and women. In order to revamp and revitalise the economic conditions of the country, Bangladesh must pursue economic reforms putting great emphasis on maximizsng its human capital resources, especially 54 million women. Holding national and international seminars on poverty alleviation, attended by world renowned personalities at five-star hotels, will not make any change on the chronic poverty in the country. Education, training and long-term skill-development programmes for women and girls at grassroots and field-levels must be undertaken jointly by the government, public and private organisations to reduce and eradicate their poverty.
The writer is the Group Financial Controller of a private group of industries.
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