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SATURDAY FEATURE
 
Women leadership at local level
Munima Sultana
2/19/2005
 

          If one is empowered to spend money or own land, the money and land deeds are kept under lock and key. What type of power would it be? But this is the right woman chairmen enjoy in practice. In this situation, many of them have been able to prove their worth.
"In the beginning, few people tried to misguide people against any of my decisions …. But after facing legal obstruction and some bold actions, the situation has changed," said Eliza Rahman, chairman of Shikdarumollik Union of Pirojpur district.
While talking with her on cell phone, she said acceptance of female chairmen in many areas is now more favourable as they have proved their impartiality in the work more than any of male colleagues.
The same was experienced by Monwara Begum, chairman of Mohajonpur Union of Meherpur district. "We face many problems including obstruction from local influential people for being women, but we do not get scared. We know people are with us," she said boldly.
Monwara said there was a trend to undermine women chairmen but it did not work.
Findings have showed that female chairmen are honest, sincere and conscious about their rights. Many of them have already built up their political capacity to rule their respective areas. And this was possible due to experience of women in practising their rights in the lower tier of the local government for two times.
Taslima Jahan, a coordinator of Khan Foundation which has worked extensively on female UP members including chairmen, said many of the women chairmen came to power for the second time and this has helped them build their capacity.
"The prospect of female chairmen has brightened with the practice of direct election," she said, adding that nowadays women who were elected in reserved seats have been humiliated with the word "reserved" which means their activities are also limited.
Although women's representation in the union councils is negligible, there were 20 women elected as chairmen in 2003 union council election. But the number was 24 in 1997 election.
Women's role in local, provincial and national political processes has got priority after the Beijing Conference and the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II). Moreover, the Beijing+5 and Istanbul+5 reviews identified women and politics and women and local government as important crosscutting issues.
Women activists say that unless women are involved in the decision and policymaking process at all levels of the state, changes in women's political and to some extent social and economic status will continue to be marginal. They consider that local government is the level of government where women can enter political life with relative ease, as the costs of mounting election campaigns are relatively low and issues at the local level tend to motivate women to enter politics.
Moreover, local governments are good training grounds for women politicians who want to reach higher levels of government.
Khan Foundation has found that many women chairmen are now interested in competing in the general election to be members of parliament. And this has happened because of their popularity in their respective areas.
Eliza, who has already been declared as the best female chairman this year, said what they cannot do for the development of their areas is very similar to the problems men face. "But working day or night was not a factor in my work," she said, however, admitting that she has heard of harassment and no working environment in many other areas.
Parul Alam, who has been involved in local government since 1984, described the problems. She said union council is an elected local government but it has many limitations including fund shortage because of control of centre.
"There is no work in the union council; the less amount we get as allotment is divided among the MP and his party men," she said in an interview.
Bangladesh Centre for Development Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) prepared a report after interviewing 19 female chairmen where it is said that the prospect of women as chairmen has brightened and they have been able to identify their obstructions in their work. The female chairmen are honest and have no involvement at all with criminal activities. At the same time, they are conscious about their rights and welfare of the people.
The women chairmen are aware of their movement and do not hesitate to raise demands like stoppage of interference of MPs and ministers at the local level and increase of government allocation. Female chairmen are even vocal to get back the power of taking control over all local earning sources including leasing power of local market places.
The finding has showed that women chairmen have good mobility like other 10 to 12 male chairmen and they face boldly the officials at district or national levels for the sake of the development of their areas. But they all felt that decentralisation is a must to make the local government more welfare-oriented.
But Taslima from her institution's finding has said that many female chairmen have lack of knowledge on alternate development works which they can do for their areas. They want to do work on those areas where the male partners do and the local people want. These include sanitation, education, health, communication and electricity.
In view of these developments, local level women political leaders feel the need for a forum where they can share their experiences and successes as well as find more avenues of works and ways to establish their political rights.
And this was also viewed in the two international conferences mentioned above. The world leaders showed the logic that women in politics and in decision-making positions in the governments and legislative bodies provide opportunities for "transformative leadership" by redefining political priorities, placing new items on the political agenda that reflect and address women's gender-specific concerns, values and experiences and provide new perspectives on mainstream issues.

 

 
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