Women’s Participation in Decision Making Process of Local Government in Bangladesh: A Study of Nine Union Parishads

Abstract

Participation of women in the smooth and proper development process is indispensable especially a country like Bangladesh which has huge numbers of women as a human resource. But regrettably, women in Bangladesh are in many ways inferior to and hooked on men from early childhood and branded as domestic life through male domination particularly in politics. The social structure of Bangladesh still works pessimistically about political participation. The recent local government reform initiates to allow women at the grassroots level and created reserved quotas and direct election through adult franchise for women in the Union Parishad. However, there are some serious lacunae in gender balancing both in terms of the government policy and reform agenda. The article tried to find problems of women’s participation in the decision-making, factors are responsible to keep them away and suggest that there would be possible solutions to unravel problems.