The 2026-27 budget proposes 5,196 crore taka for the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs — 175 crore taka less than the current 2025-26 revised budget of 5,371 crore taka, though up from 4,630 crore taka in 2014. Finance Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury presented the proposal in his budget speech in parliament on Thursday.
“Women’s empowerment is the indicator of development,” the finance minister said, adding that the government is giving the highest priority to building legal and scientific capacity to protect women’s and children’s rights. New software will be added next fiscal year for DNA-sample analysis at the National Forensic DNA Profiling Laboratory and seven divisional DNA screening laboratories set up under the “Multisectoral Programme” to prevent violence against women. A database of new and promising women entrepreneurs is being built to bring them under the state framework and help ensure their training, loan facilities and market links. In a first phase 20 and in a later phase 60 more modern daycare centres will be set up for working women, and steps have been taken to ensure the rehabilitation and social protection of returnee women migrant workers.
Under the Vulnerable Women Benefit (VWB) programme, 10 lakh 40 thousand women in 4,586 unions across 493 upazilas are currently being given 30 kg of rice and fortified rice a month. The finance minister said the “Quick Response Team” for swift action against violence against women and children is being strengthened, and long-term rehabilitation of street children and at-risk children is continuing. Currently 33 integrated child-rehabilitation centres operate in 17 districts to protect at-risk, disadvantaged and vulnerable children — government-funded centres with separate housing and living arrangements for 3,300 boys and 3,300 girls. Special action plans are being implemented for the welfare of speech-, hearing- and sight-impaired and autistic children. Child development centres provide housing each year for an average of 350 girls in conflict with the law. On families of children martyred in the July mass uprising and injured children, the finance minister said: “In tribute to the sacrifice of the children martyred in the July mass uprising, and to support their families, 84 families were given one-time 50,000-taka prize bonds and honorary mementoes on World Children’s Day and Child Rights Week.” Work is continuing to restore injured children’s physical and mental wellbeing and bring them back into the mainstream of society, he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report