Political empowerment of women has become an essence of the time for sustainable advancement of the society to build discrimination-free society with equal rights of the womenfolk.Speakers said this at the concluding session of a daylong orientation course organised for the grassroots level elected female public representatives at Gangachara upazila parishad auditorium here on Sunday.Democracy Watch (DW) in association with local non-governmental organisation Gano Kallyan Sangstha (GKS) and Gangachara upazila administration organised the orientation course under the ongoing ‘Aparajita’ project of DW.The elected female public representatives including female union parishad members, elected leaders of various women organisations and bodies from different sectors in the society of the upazila participated in the orientation course.Gangachara UNO Abu Jafar addressed the session as the chief guest while female vice-chairman of the upazila Khyanto Rani Roy spoke as the special guest with Executive Director of GKS Golam Mehedi in the chair.Senior Programme Office of DW Moniruzzman Monir narrated the concept of gender issues, women leadership, role of women leadership in communication, establishing human rights, women rights, domestic violence etc as Training Facilitator.He also discussed the present situation on issues like gender, role of gender, gender discrimination, domestic violence, repression, child marriage, dowry, economic empowerment of women and women leadership in the society.The participating women leaders and public representatives stressed for creating congenial atmosphere in every sector of the society so that they could play due role in establishing gender equity to accelerate national development.There is no alternative to flourishing women leadership for their political empowerment to eradicate the prevailing discriminations being faced by the womenfolk for ensuring their enhanced participations in the social uplift activities, they said.The speakers put maximum emphasis on ensuring gender equity through coordinated efforts of all adding that the elected women leaders and representatives must have adequate political empowerment to achieve the desired goals towards the direction. -BSS, Rangpur
