Gendered violence in gender-based development projects: conditional cash transfer programs and women's 'empowerment' and 'development' in Bangladesh

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs function in countries around the world and usually transfer cash to the mothers of the beneficiary children in order to facilitate women's '~development' and '~empowerment.' In most cases, the World Bank and the governments of the respective countries jointly operate these CCT programs. Since 1992, in Bangladesh, CCT programs operate via two broad education-based programs: the Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP) and the Primary Education Development Program (PEDP). Mainstream development thinkers and World Bank experts claim the exemplary nature of these programs in achieving their objectives including: delaying the marriage age for girls, increasing school enrollment, enabling employability, and enhancing empowerment within the household. However, critical development thinkers have found sufficient evidence that, instead of developing and empowering women, CCT programs are using women as '~conduits of policy' or as '~workhorses' in the name of gender-based development. Based on fieldwork done in northern Bangladesh in 2014, guided by feminist qualitative methodology, and through the analysis of testmonios of 13 mothers of the beneficiary children and girls, the present study found no corresponding empirical evidence to suggest any improvement in the wellbeing of women. On the contrary, women recounted concerns with the low quality of their children's education, and experiences when the stipend money adversely affected them. This study concludes that CCT programs are at best ineffective in meeting the stated goals, and at worst, aggravating structural violence against women in Bangladesh. --Leaf ii.