National Plan for Action (as follow-up to 4^th World Conference on Women) - Bangladesh

The government of Bangladesh endorsed the Beijing Platform for Action with no reservations. The main tool for implementing the Platform is the National Action Plan (NAP), which sets the following broad goals:

1. to make women's development an integral part of the national development programme;
2. to establish women as equal partners in development with equal roles in policy and decision-making in the family, community and nation at large;
3. to remove legal, economic, political or cultural barriers that prevent the exercise of equal rights by undertaking policy reforms and strong affirmative actions;
4. to raise/create public awareness about women's differential needs, interests and priorities and increase commitment to bring about improvements in women's position and condition;

In relation to women's employment, the Plan stresses the need to improve women's working conditions. This includes increasing the scope of maternity leave, more creches and day care centres, adequate numbers of separate toilet facilities, better transport facilities especially for night work and accommodation facilities for out of station work placements.

The NAP also proposes the development of professionally elaborated gender

sensitive codes of conduct/ethics/self regulatory mechanisms for the medical and media professionals, with the goal of promoting greater respect for women and their rights, monitoring action and taking internal disciplinary actions against violations of the agreed codes of conduct.