Staff Correspondent

The women's rights organization, Naripokkho, has strongly protested and condemned the exclusion of female officers from a training program organized by Dhaka University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

According to a report published in The Business Standard on July 15, Bangladesh Bank nominated 30 officers to participate in an 'Applied Artificial Intelligence' course. Despite 90 female officers being among the 473 applicants, not a single woman was selected for the training. Bangladesh Bank cited concerns regarding the security of female officers, given that the classes conclude in the evening.

In a statement issued on Friday, Naripokkho highlighted the contradiction in the bank's reasoning, noting that many of the female officers who applied for the training regularly work until late evening or night to fulfill professional responsibilities and often undertake work-related travel when required. The organization questioned why the bank only expressed security concerns in the context of this training program. Naripokkho characterized the decision as a conspiracy to keep women inefficient in the workplace, reflecting a deep-seated institutional disregard for women's professional lives.

Naripokkho expressed deep concern and anger over the decision and put forward three specific demands. First, the organization called for an immediate reconsideration of the selection process to include an equal number of female officers in the training. Second, they demanded the provision of safe transportation for female participants. Third, they urged the authorities to ensure that women are granted fair opportunities in all future training programs and official activities.

According to Naripokkho, rather than excluding women from the program, the bank should have taken proactive measures to prioritize and facilitate their participation in the evening course. The organization asserted that by choosing exclusion over solutions, the bank has institutionalized discrimination.

Naripokkho concluded that denying female officers access to such training creates unnecessary obstacles to their development as modern, technology-savvy, and knowledge-based human resources.