The Status of Poor Women in Rural Bangladesh: Survival Through Socio-political Conflict

Abstract

This study is based on how rural poor Muslim women in Bangladesh have become the target of both international donor agencies and of Islamic preachers. In Bangladesh, religion and politics are not viewed separately, nor are they subsumed under the other. This thesis focuses on how Islam is currently being practiced by Islamic groups and attempts to analyse the socio-political conflicts between Islamic views and empowerment opportunities provided by NGOs in rural Bangladesh. Widely speaking, the secondary focus here is the hegemonic model of development espoused by multinational and local NGOs that offer poor rural women employment, and the opposing approaches offered by the main Islamist political party. In addition this study discusses the targeted women‘s capability of identifying the best option among the contested approaches offered by those dominant groups.