Eroding gains: Women’s role in post-Hasina Bangladesh economy at risk of erasure

For decades, Bangladesh’s economic story was intertwined with the story of its women. The garment factories filled with young female workers, the self-help groups in rural districts, the rise of women entrepreneurs in urban centres — these were the images that defined a society struggling against patriarchy but finding empowerment through labour and wages. 

Under Sheikh Hasina, women were regularly hailed as both symbols of progress and engines of growth. 

But since Hasina’s ouster in 2024, that fragile progress has begun to unravel. 

In today’s Bangladesh, the contribution of women to the economy is increasingly vulnerable, overshadowed by rising radicalism, social insecurity, and institutional indifference. 

The achievements of decades risk being overshadowed by political upheaval and lawlessness.

Garment sector under pressure

The ready-made garment (RMG) industry — the backbone of Bangladesh’s export economy — employs more than four million workers, of which nearly 60% are women. 

For years, this sector was not just a source of foreign exchange but a channel of empowerment, offering rural women a chance to earn, support their families, and delay early marriages.

Since 2024, however, the environment inside and outside the factories has changed. 

Reports surfaced in late 2024 of women workers facing increased harassment on their way to and from factories, particularly in industrial belts near Gazipur and Savar, where policing thinned after Hasina’s fall. 

In March 2025, labour groups documented at least a dozen incidents in which mobs targeted buses carrying female garment workers, in some cases looting their belongings and physically assaulting them. 

These attacks forced factories to shorten shifts, cut production, and discourage female hiring.

At the same time, the international buyers who had once pressed for worker safety in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza tragedy in 2013 are now signalling concerns over the deteriorating climate. 

The erosion of security for women workers undermines not only their livelihoods but also Bangladesh’s competitive edge in the global market.

Agriculture and informal work: Invisible but indispensable

Beyond garments, Bangladeshi women play an indispensable role in agriculture and informal labour. 

They till fields, manage household poultry and fisheries, and sell produce in local markets. Their contribution rarely enters formal GDP accounting, but it is critical to food security.

In rural areas, particularly in the north and coastal belts, women are increasingly being pushed out of marketplaces. 

Rising Islamist assertiveness since 2024 has emboldened local clerics and vigilante groups to harass women vendors, often branding their public participation as “un-Islamic.” 

By mid-2025, civil society organisations had recorded more than 200 cases of women vendors being threatened, assaulted, or forced to abandon market stalls. Many have retreated into unpaid domestic roles, reversing years of incremental progress.

The story is similar in the informal urban economy. Women street hawkers, domestic workers, and day labourers report higher risks of abuse, non-payment, and violence. 

Yet their stories rarely reach headlines, drowned out by the larger political crisis engulfing the country.

Mob rule and gendered violence

The widespread lawlessness that has engulfed Bangladesh following Hasina’s removal has had distinctly gendered consequences. 

Mob rule — exemplified by the 637 lynchings in one year documented by rights groups — has created an environment of perpetual insecurity. Women are often the first victims of such breakdowns.

In early 2025, a university student in Dhaka was harassed by supporters of a religious hardliner. When she sought justice, mobs surrounded the police station demanding her withdrawal of the complaint, issuing chilling threats of sexual violence. 

Instead of protection, she was pressured into silence. Incidents like these illustrate how the collapse of law and order silences women and discourages them from pursuing education and work — pillars of their economic independence.

The threat is not only physical but reputational. Islamist factions increasingly brand women working in mixed environments as immoral. 

Sports tournaments for women have been disrupted or cancelled under pressure from radical groups, cutting off not just careers but also the visibility of women in public life.

Erosion of institutional support

During Hasina’s tenure, the rhetoric of “Digital Bangladesh” and inclusive development gave some institutional recognition to women’s role in growth. 

Microcredit schemes, many pioneered by Muhammad Yunus himself through Grameen Bank, once served as a bridge for rural women to participate in the economy. Yet under Yunus’s own interim government in 2024–25, these support systems have withered.

Minority women face the harshest conditions. In 2025 alone, more than 49 Hindu teachers, many of them women, were forced to resign from schools after threats and attacks. 

Their displacement not only robs them of income but also deprives communities of female role models. 

In Jashore, the May 2025 mob violence following a Hindu leader’s killing saw women’s homes specifically targeted, with reports of looting and intimidation intended to force them into exodus.

When minority women lose jobs, land, or businesses, their families often spiral deeper into poverty. 

Yet government statements continue to downplay the crisis, framing attacks as “political” rather than communal, a narrative that erases the gendered dimensions of the violence.

The economic consequences of exclusion

The sidelining of women is not a matter of morality or symbolism alone — it strikes at the heart of Bangladesh’s economy. 

Women’s participation in the labour force, which had reached over 38% in 2023, is now at risk of falling sharply.

This decline translates into real losses. Lower female participation means reduced household incomes, slower poverty reduction, and diminished resilience against inflation. 

It also undermines Bangladesh’s aspirations to climb the global value chain. International investors who once praised the country’s large female workforce are watching the deterioration with concern. 

Already, reports in 2025 suggest that some garment orders have shifted toward Vietnam and Cambodia, partly due to instability in Bangladesh.

The erosion of women’s place in the economy also aggravates demographic challenges. With a large youth population entering working age, sidelining women effectively wastes half the potential workforce. 

At a time when Bangladesh faces declining remittances and mounting debt, such exclusion is not just regressive — it is catastrophic.

Silenced voices, darker futures

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of this crisis is the silencing of women’s voices. 

In political rallies since Hasina’s fall, women activists are notably absent or relegated to token roles. 

Civil society groups led by women report shrinking space, with many leaders facing harassment or surveillance. 

Media coverage of women’s issues has dwindled, crowded out by stories of mob violence, radical marches, and factional politics.

In 2024, the fall of a woman leader who embodied strongman politics ironically paved the way for the marginalisation of women across society. 

Sheikh Hasina was criticised for authoritarian tendencies, but her tenure nonetheless created space — however limited — for women’s economic participation. 

The Yunus-led interim regime, by contrast, has presided over an unravelling where even that space is evaporating.
Gains at risk of erasure

Bangladesh’s economic miracle of the past three decades cannot be told without its women. 

From garments to agriculture, from microcredit to migration, they have been the silent backbone of growth. Yet in the unstable, radicalised, lawless climate of post-Hasina Bangladesh, their role is being steadily erased.

The statistics of violence, the testimonies of harassment, the loss of jobs, and the retreat from public life all point to one truth: the contribution of women is under existential threat.

If this trajectory continues, the legacy of women’s empowerment in Bangladesh risks being remembered not as a triumph of resilience but as a fleeting chapter undone by political chaos and social regression.