Outcry in Bangladesh over politician’s call to curb women in workforce

Controversial remarks in Bangladesh by a politician who questioned women’s ability to perform jobs because of their child-bearing role have caused an uproar ahead of the general election in a country where female workers form the spine of its mainstay garment sector.Shafiqur Rahman, the chief of the Bangladesh-jamaat-e-islami" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="26455" data-entity-type="organization">Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, also ruled out the possibility of a woman assuming the Islamist party’s top post.In a TV interview, Rahman said women with babies should be given the option of fewer working hours after maternity leave.“Maternity leave is only for six months. It is not sufficient, we feel. A child never grows up in six months,” he told Al Jazeera last week, adding that a woman should be given such a choice to enable her to continue in a job without causing hardship.In the same interview, he said women should bear children due to their physical attributes, but a woman’s parenting responsibility would limit her ability to lead his party.The interview followed a recent social media post by him in which he also referred to the need for curbs to be placed on working women. He later deleted the post after a backlash from students and women’s groups.