Shadma Malik

Social challenges have held back women's economic participation over the last decade, despite headway made in education, training, entrepreneurship, and jobs overseas.

Garment worker Mira breathed a sigh of relief when she learnt last November that she would no longer have to bear her healthcare bills.

Two minors engaged in forced labour in Dubai have been rescued by Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association (BNWLA).

Riyas wakes up early every day, eats his breakfast, and then heads to “Phulki” in the capital's Mirpur. Once there, he greets his friends and supervisor, then quickly gets on to business at hand: running in circles, building castles out of blocks, and herding a menagerie of stuffed animals.

Four months into her pregnancy, Tahmina, 35, found herself under constant stress as she tried to meet the production quota in the RMG factory in Tejgaon where she had been working for the last four years.

Forty-year-old Abu Kalam dug into the towering garbage pile in search of bones at the landfill in the capital's Matuail. He seemed unperturbed by the foul smell which had perhaps taken a backseat to the money he could earn by selling discarded animal parts.

It was a moment of pride when Parimal Kumar Das got his autistic son's SSC results this year, but memories of being turned down by other schools flashed through his mind.

Mansura Akhter Panna, 30, often recalls her dreadful days of menstruation when she entered puberty.

A young girl with some documents in her hands sat in the waiting room of Nagar Shastho Kendra in the capital's Meradia.

Shahana Chowdhury kept going back to the story of her 25-year-old son’s recent Hong Kong visit and repeatedly said how proud she was to have seen her autistic child along with 10 others win the best performance award in a cultural programme there. Her excitement was mixed with gratitude for Begum Nur Jahan Dipa, special educator at the Parents Forum for the Differently Able (PFDA)-Vocational Training Centre, who made it possible.

Yeanur Rahman came to Dhaka with big dreams. She studied hard, aced her final exams maintaining a good GPA and got admitted into a public university in the capital. Things were going exactly as she had envisioned. Better yet, the freshman thought she had fallen in love with someone in her very first year.

With an aim to detect cancer at its primary stage, the Nuclear Medicine Institute (NMI) is going to install a PET/CT scanner from early January next year.

On a busy September evening last year, Limana Solaiman, a private service holder, waited at Kakoli in the capital for about one and a half hours to hail an auto-rickshaw home.

The government decision to change the nurses' uniform is being implemented slowly as the majority of the health care providers are reluctant to take up their new attire.

Patients had to queue up and wait long hours to undergo surgery at the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic

Eight-year-old Hridoy had a surgery at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital two weeks ago after he had suffered severe injuries to his abdomen while swimming in the Gournadi, Barisal.

The Green University of Bangladesh has launched a faculty development programme aiming to improve teaching quality and motivate teachers to conduct research.

Watching a baby crawl across the floor is probably the best sight to behold for parents. But Shahida and Raju Mia, a couple from Gaibandha, are deprived of it, as Shahida last year gave birth to conjoined twins, who could hardly move as per their wish let alone crawl on the floor.

Every time he left Dhaka Shishu Hospital, his parents would have a feeling that their son recovered completely.

A mother she is of 40 children. She has not given birth to them but that doesn't make any less satisfactory the motherhood she tastes when she prepares food for them, gets them ready for school, holds them with affection as they fall sick and tells them stories in bed before sleep.