Women behind Development!

Economists claim that the participation of women in economic activities in the country has doubled in the last seven years. Women played the most significant role in micro credit for which Dr Mohammad Yunus and Grameen Bank won the Noble peace Prize. According to world trade organization (WOT), it is the women of Bangladesh that constitute 80 percent of the garments industry workers, who have taken the country to its position as the third largest ready made garments producing country in the world and turned RMG into the largest export sector of the country. Based on official statistics of 1991, approximately 2,000 female workers went abroad to work in a year on aver age. Today this statistics has increased to 20,000 to 30,000 per year. At present more then 200,000 females are working abroad. According to government statistics, women constitute about 13 percent of labor export. However, the government has not yet taken any initiative to calculate their contribution to the country’s total foreign exchange earnings. Sources reveal that a male Bangladeshi working around can send 15 to 20 percent of his income back to the country after incurring living costs. But the female workers send more then 70 percent of their incomes back home after meeting their own living expenses. According to the most recent statistics of micro credit Regulatory Authority, in June 2010, the total number of micro credit borrowers in the country was 25.28 million, and women comprised more then 90 percent of them. The latest survey done by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics show that 16.2 million of the 54.10 million workers in the country are women. Small and medium size female entrepreneurs total 16,697 in number.