The public sector quota for the employment of female drivers remains mainly unused as concerns for safety and the perceptions of family members deter woman from taking those jobs.
There is a 15 per cent quota for women drivers in public offices, but the transport commissioner and additional secretary Mohammad Reaz Ahmed, who works in the directorate of government transport, said that few women apply for those jobs.
‘At present we have 100 vacant posts in Dhaka and have about several hundred vacant posts for drivers all over the country, but no woman applied for those posts,’ he said.
According to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, in total about 350 women have professional driving licences. This compares with the 7,58,748 male drivers who have professional licenses.
In September 2012, the non-government organisation BRAC signed a memorandum of understanding with the BRTA and has so far trained 75 women drivers in four batches, yet only 18 of them have got jobs.
The non-governmental organisation Ganasastha Kendra also provides driving training to women – but of the 46 women it has trained, only 12 are working, said the Kendra women development programme director Sanghaya
Roy.
Some of the women drivers who have completed their training told New Age that many woman did not know about the public service jobs, or were inhibited from applying for the jobs as they were concerned about safety.
Some of the women drivers also said that they had quit their jobs due to family problems.
Jonnie, one of the BRAC first batch trainees, said that after getting training she had worked for a month but later quit as her mother became sick. ‘I also got a proposal for a night-shift job but did not take it for safety reasons.’
Daisy, a trainee from second batch, quit her job as she drove an ambulance on both night and day shifts. ‘It became difficult for me to drive at night,’ she said.
Some trainees also said that they were forced to quit their driving jobs as their family members asked them not to do such ‘odd work’.
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Ayesha Khanam told New Age on Tuesday that it was obvious why female drivers were not getting interested in public sector driving jobs.
‘If any public office puts a female driver amongst ten male drivers then, those male drivers, would treat her inappropriately,’ she said.
Ayesha said that non-government organisations tended to comply with anti-harassment policies than government offices which encouraged women to get jobs in private organisations.
BRAC director Ahmed Nazmul Hossain said that there was a provision for women having licenses to drive heavy vehicles to apply for public posts.
‘Our women drivers are just new comers so how can they obtain such a license,’ he said. ‘The government should make the rules flexible for promoting women drivers.’
Ganasastha Kendra director claimed that one of their female drivers applied for a public job but she did not get it.
Most of the women drivers usually are employed by non-government and international organisations including BRAC, Ganasastha Kendra, Care Bangladesh and different United Nations bodies, she added.
Mohammad Reaz Ahmed responded by saying that the government ‘could consider amending the recruitment rules if necessary.’
In relation to the issue of safety, Reaz Ahmed said that he could not respond until a woman got a job in their offices.
-With New Age input
