Giving a voice to Bangladesh's women

Married at 12, Golenur Begum never left the family compound in southern Bangladesh. Through an MDG-F programme to improve nutrition, she acquired goats and began homestead gardening, activities which produced enough income for Golenur to purchase a plot of land for farming. Golenur says her new-found economic independence has increased her self-respect  and her status in the family, and given her a voice in decisions that affect her. “If one can give her opinion in the family, then she feels her importance, her power,” she says.