Dhaka, May 23: International news agency Reuters has featured the newly elected FIFA Council member Mahfuza Akhter Kiron highlighting her bid to reduce the ‘insane’ disparity with men making 250 times more than women.
The
Reuters report noted Kiron’s surprise victory over her rival Moya Dodd, the
frontrunner from Australia who had already served on FIFA bodies.
The report had Kiron sharing her views on women’s empowerment in sports beginning with the appalling wage disparity at Tk 50 lakh per year for men and just about Tk 20,000 for women.
The global news agency quoted her saying, “It’s completely insane. Why would a woman be interested in football? We have to develop our football in a way where women can consider it as a career option.”
The new FIFA councillor explained that women do not consider sports as a career specifically because of such derogatory pay.
She went on to suggest that footballers should receive some form of pension to provide aspiring footballers with an assurance of security even after they stop playing.
“We must make the parents understand that if a girl plays football, she can be secured in every way in her life. A footballer will be more confident physically and mentally,” the report quoted Kiron as saying.
A former general secretary of the women’s sports council in Bangladesh and currently head of Bangladesh Foodball Federations women’s committee, Kiron herself never got to play football, she told Reuters.
But her interest, according to the report, grew from watching her four brothers play the global game.
Kiron shared with Reuters how she managed to get young girls to participate in sports competitions.
Kiron told the agency that there had been football tournaments and competitions at the schools for girls where there was not a single entrant. “I had to do counselling sessions with parents and with the schools’ game teachers for days.”
The full report is available at http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN18E0XG
< Prev | Next > |
---|