Empowerment through access to resources

Pramita Paul Majumder

Photo: Amdadul Huq/Drik

Achieving gender equality and women's empowerment is a national goal in Bangladesh. This goal is reflected in the country's Constitution, laws, policies and other official papers, in each of its long-, medium-, and short-term plans, and also in the Policy Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). Bangladesh has also reaffirmed this goal by ratifying various international treaties. Women in Bangladesh carried on with a movement for the last four decades since Independence to achieve this goal, but succeeded very little. In the past decade, they realized that national budgets are the most powerful tools to achieve this goal, since only through these tools it is possible to provide all the necessary measures. How much income will come from which sources, how much expenditure will occur for which item, which areas will be given priority, how much will be allocated for which segments of the population all these are determined through annual national budgets of the country.

Women in Bangladesh realized that if national budget is not gender-sensitive, this cannot be an effective tool for achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. And, for that, the process of formulating budgets has to be gender-sensitive. Because, only a gender-sensitive process can take into account the realities that there are differences between men and women in each socio-economic and political sphere and the need for addressing such differences. A gender-sensitive process also takes into consideration the facts that women and men possess different potential and creativity and they have different roles in different fields of the society. Their problems are also different. Therefore, women in Bangladesh have been demanding such a process for the last few years. To strengthen their demand, women have carried out a number of researches on gender-sensitivity of national budgets and the budgetary process. Such researches identified various budgetary measures that are required for achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. Several seminars, workshops and discussions took place to disseminate the findings of these researches. Attempts will be made in this article to determine the extent of achieving gender equality and, consequently, achieving women's empowerment in various areas of Bangladesh through budgetary measures.

An examination of national budgets of the last decade reveals that several budgetary measures have been undertaken to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment. As a result, in the last decade, in respect of gender disparity, Bangladesh was able to narrow the extent in many areas, reduce the spread in some areas, and in one or two areas, eliminate altogether. However, with the passage of time, the areas and nature of gender disparity and gender discrimination changed and new areas have emerged. For example, information technology is one new area where gender disparity and gender discrimination became widespread. There was an emergence of entrepreneurship among women, and unfortunately, this became another new area of gender disparity. Environmental degradation was an area where gender disparity became severe. Therefore, the process of addressing gender issues through national budgets is a continuous one.

Photo: A M Ahad Drik News

Education for women has multi-dimensional impacts: it not only reduces gender disparity in education itself; it also contributes to reducing gender disparity and enhances women's empowerment in other areas such as participation in labour force, in politics, and in other fields where women's self-confidence is an important factor. There was an intensification of budgetary measures for eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education and the measures succeeded in achieving the goals fully. Yet, a careful analysis of the education budget shows that there was remarkable growth in madrassah education, especially at the ebtedayee level (primary level) and female students' participation in this education is very high. In the last five years, the growth in the number of female students in the madrassahs was 67 percent while that of male students was only 4 percent. Unfortunately, madrassah education does not empower women sufficiently since this education limits them to a very narrow area of labour market. It has been found that the garment industry that opened up a huge market for women workers does not employ a single madrassah-educated woman.

Although gender parity has been achieved in enrolment in the primary and secondary levels, disparity still remains in completion of education at these levels and in education at the higher level. This is reflected in the literacy statistics in the age group 20-24 years, at one end, and in the enrolment statistics in colleges and universities at another end. In the age group 20-24 years, the literacy rate of women is only 55 percent compared to 71 percent of men and in colleges and universities only 36 percent of enrolled students are women. There is wide gender disparity in vocational education and skill training too. These educations are influential factors affecting empowerment.

In information technology (IT), there have been a few budgetary steps that helped women particularly. Computers and accessories being duty-free helped accessibility of women to computers, their computer literacy and their entry into the IT sector. The elimination of VAT from Internet service helps women likewise. Mobile phone services have been particularly beneficial for rural women, in various ways such as keeping track of remittances by relatives from abroad, obtaining information about health services, legal services, etc., and most importantly about agricultural matters like supply of inputs and demand for outputs. Further budgetary steps related to IT will strengthen such gains for women.

Bangladesh witnessed improvement in the field of health during the last ten years as a result of various budgetary measures. The life expectancy of the people improved, and there has been remarkable progress in gender parity; in fact, according to Sample Vital Registration System 2006, the life expectancy of women is slightly better than that of men, 65.9 years for women compared to 64.7 years for men. But the general health conditions of the people of Bangladesh are still very bad, and women are worse off than men, particularly in the age group of 15 to 59 years. This is the age that is most productive in the life of everyone, man and woman alike. But the need for differentiated measures was not addressed in the budgets.

In any case, in spite of certain increases in the budgetary allocation for women's health, the level still remains extremely low, as low as 1.32 percent in 2010-11. And, most of it is aimed at women's reproductive health rather than at their general health. However, budgetary measures taken for women's reproductive health have not been quite successful. One of the reasons is the location of the government primary health care centers and hospitals in the headquarters of thanas, upazillas and districts, which are not easily accessible to pregnant women from the villages with limited mobility. It is necessary that the materials and services for safe child delivery and maternal health are taken to the doorstep of these women. The shortage of medications, instruments, nurses and doctors is an additional problem. The unavailability of women doctors is acute. It has been found that majority of pregnant women in the rural areas do not go to health centres or hospitals for childbirth only for this reason. Available statistics show that 83 percent of the babies in villages are born under the care of local midwives. Unfortunately, 80 percent of the deaths of mothers at childbirth occur under their care also.

Of course, there are safety net programs in the national budgets of Bangladesh for helping the poor pregnant women. But these programs have not been found to be effective in combating maternal death and that is why Bangladesh is far behind in achieving the MDG (Millennium Development Goal) of reducing maternal mortality by 2015. It has been found that the cash given under the Maternal Voucher Scheme, a safety net program undertaken to help poor pregnant mother, is spent for the husband and children and not for the pregnant woman herself. Thus, instead of giving cash, operating mobile clinics for pregnant women may be the best measure. In the budget of last two years, measures have been included to revive the community clinics of the past. It is expected that these clinics will be functional soon.

These disparities explain why Bangladesh could not achieve gender equality in acquiring human capital. According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2009, the gender development index (GDI) for Bangladesh is only 0.536, indicating that women's development is only half of men's.

Regarding the attainment of economic capital also Bangladesh is far behind achieving gender equality although various policies and budgetary measures were undertaken to narrow this gap. However, these policies and budgetary measures were aimed at alleviation of poverty, at the national and the individual levels, rather than at the development of women themselves and hence, these policies and measures could not empower women adequately. Surveys of labour force show that while in the age group 15 years and above the percentage of women's participation in the labour force rose to 26.1 percent and 29.2 percent in 2002-03 and 2005-06, respectively, from 15.8 percent in 1995-96, that of men's participation was as high as 87.0 percent, although remaining stagnant, during those years. The lion's share of women's participation was in unskilled or low skilled jobs and micro-credit-based work and thus has very little potentials for high income and high profits or further expansion. Low income and low or no profits from micro-credit-based work result in little empowerment of women. In addition, due to participation of women in the labour force there results a new kind of gender disparity, in enjoying various advantages such as wage level, wage increase and promotion. Neither has there been any budgetary measure making working conditions amenable to women so that women workers are subjected to an inordinate share of work-related hazards, namely, health, accidents, crime, sexual harassment, etc.

It has been observed that because of the export of manpower from Bangladesh, much work of the agriculture sector has to be carried out now by women, and thus the rate of growth of women's participation in labour force shifted from non-agriculture sectors to the agriculture sector which is less productive compare to non-agriculture sectors . Moreover, women do not have ownership of land and thus, there is no empowerment in spite of their increased participation. This author's own research shows that in recent period women supply about 70 percent of the necessary labour in the cultivation of potatoes, but women are not recognized as “potato producers” because they do not have the ownership of potato land. This lack of ownership also deprives women from taking advantage of any incentives provided in the budget such as subsidies, tax breaks, etc which are enjoyed by men almost solely. Budgetary incentives provided in the non-agriculture sector are also almost solely enjoyed by men. There has hardly been any budgetary measure to create opportunities for women entrepreneurs who have been growing gradually over the last few years and who have proved that they have tremendous potential in developing large enterprises.

Access of women to resources, be it financial, information, land or manpower resources, is very limited. Access to resources is key to empowerment. As a result of budgetary measures during the last few years women have been able to gain manpower resources to a certain extent, but there has not been progress with respect to other resources. Disparity in property ownership results from inheritance law, and inheritance law is in turn governed by religious laws. The State remained unable in changing the religiously governed inheritance laws. According to Islamic law, a female child's inheritance of property is half of a male child's. According to Hindu law (the religion of the largest minority group), a female child inherits no part of property. Limiting women to property resulting from religious inheritance laws limits their ability to offer collateral to obtain loans from the formal banking sector whereas loans from the formal sector is crucial for undertaking any gainful business venture or expansion of business.

It would have been possible to direct resources towards women through appropriate measures in revenue and development budgets. But apart from a few micro-credit projects, nothing much has been done. Recently, Bangladesh Bank has been encouraging private banks to give loans to women without collateral, but has not had much success so far. In the national budget of the fiscal year 2009-10, provisions have been made to allow banks and financial institutions to open SME service centres and to give priorities to women in the centres, but it remains to be seen how much will be achieved since no tax incentives have been given to private banks to assist SMEs or to open Women's Banks.

Participation in administration and politics is another influential factor affecting empowerment. But unfortunately, women's participation in these two ares is very small. Only 10 percent of the persons engaged in government are women. It has been found that this gender difference leads to women's voice not being heard in any Ministry which in turn leads to the neglect of gender issues in the budget of that Ministry. The national Parliament is the highest policy making institution. In the last general election there were 19 elected and 45 nominated women members as opposed to 7 and 30, respectively, in 1996. In addition to the Prime Minister, there are 3 women members in the Cabinet. However, although there has been an increase in the last decade in the number of women members of the Parliament and the Cabinet, the number is still relatively small compared to the total. Besides, the nominated women members do not appear to be in touch with women at the grassroots. Thus, there have not been any deliberations in the nation's highest policy making institution about women's issues, their problems and solutions, their rights and demands.

These gender inequalities were the causes for women in Bangladesh to be empowered for poverty alleviation at a lesser rate than men. Statistics from Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) show that between 1990 and 2006 women witnessed reduction in poverty by only 9 percent while the country as a whole witnessed reduction by 16 percent. HIES statistics further show that the average calorie consumption of women of poor families is 772.07 units while that of men is 1,143.18 units.

Men and women are affected differently by environmental degradation, particularly in respect of access to safe drinking water and to improved sanitation facilities, which now are very important dimensions of poverty. Men and women also suffer from the effects of natural disasters differently. Women are also worse victims of the arsenic problem. Yet, these differences are not taken into account when budgetary measures are devised to counter the impacts of natural disasters.

Widespread insecurity and violence issues are another aspect of poverty in Bangladesh, and that affects women almost exclusively. It is well known that injuries and deaths from fires in garment factories occurred more for women. Research shows that lack of security such as sexual harassment, dowry giving, acid throwing, kidnapping, etc., affect women's education, employment and their participation in politics, thus adversely pushing them behind in achieving empowerment. Yet, other than a few small measures there were no budgetary measures against such widespread lack of security of women.

As a result, gender gap in empowerment remains wide. According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2009, the gender empowerment index of Bangladesh is 0.264, indicating that women's empowerment is only one-fourth of men's empowerment.

It is clear from this article that Bangladesh has a long way to go in achieving gender equality and empowerment of women in each sphere. But what is hopeful is that in the civil society and even among policy makers a consciousness has arisen of the importance of the gender-sensitive national budget which could be an effective tool for that purpose. Thus, last year the Honourable Finance Minister of the country not only spoke about the importance of such a budget but also promised to increase the allocation in the budget to that end. Besides, the process that started in 2003 is continuing of presenting a Medium-Term Budgetary Framework (MTBF) as part of formulation of gender-sensitive annual budgets. For example, the Finance Minister presented MTBFs for 33 ministries while putting forth this year's budget, including the division of the budgetary allocation by gender for 10 Ministries, particularly the Ministries of Land and of Fisheries and Cattle which are important for the empowerment of women through utilization and access to these resources. The most significant gender-related statement of the Finance Minister at the time of presentation of the annual budgets was the one in which he announced that the National Policy on Women formulated in 1997 will be re-instated very soon. Implementation of this Policy can contribute greatly to the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women as it has proffered equal rights to women in all spheres, including in property.

However, achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment is like a movement requiring the involvement of the whole society that is possible only through raising consciousness for which the government, NGOs and the civil society have to work together.

The writer is senior Research fellow, BIDS.