Bangladesh has a large percentage of its vast population young and lives below the poverty line. According to the UNDP Human Development Report (2005) Bangladesh ranked 105 in Gender Development Index (GDI) and 79 in Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The
United Nations Family Planning Association State of the World Population 2000 report
declared Bangladesh second highest in the world in incidence of violence against women.

Violence against women may take many forms and includes wife battering as well as
murder for non-payment of dowry, custodial rape, attacking with acid and trafficking
(Coomaraswany, 2001). However, given Bangladesh's adverse socio-economic conditions, high population density, vulnerability to natural disaster, and lack of natural resources, recent achievements of Bangladesh are impressive. World Bank report (2005) justifies that, “Bangladesh has achieved considerable success in the areas of lowering population growth, fostering women's empowerment, reducing aid dependence, achieving success in human development, maintaining a decent level of macroeconomic stability, overcoming the shadow of famine, attaining effective disaster management capacity, and promoting NGOs as an alternative delivery mechanism. Bangladesh has witnessed the sharpest decline in infant mortality of any developing country (Stern, 2002). It is widely seen as a successful case in the area of population control in the face of low income and low literacy through favorable public policy toward family planning, women's empowerment, and community involvement (Sen, 1999; BIDS, 2001; Dev et al., 2002). The virtual elimination of gender disparity in the enrollment rate up to the junior secondary level is another major accomplishment. Although the country is yet to attain a sex ratio consistent with the expected biological advantage associated with higher female survival, it has already achieved gender parity in life expectancy. As a result of all these achievements, Bangladesh, for the first time in its independent history, has graduated from being the "test case of development" (Faaland and Parkinson, 1975) to being classified as a "medium human development" country (UNDP, 2003).

Still there exists significant gender disparity in income poverty. The incidence of extreme poverty is usually higher for female-headed, female-managed and female supported households. Moreover, the Labour Force Survey and micro-level household surveys have found that female workers earn considerably less than their male counterparts. It is also evident that there is lower average consumption for female given the persistent gender inequality in severe malnutrition, higher mortality and morbidity (Government of Bangladesh, 2004).

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