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A 'Training on Women's Economic Leadership' course for returnee women migrant workers began in the city on Tuesday.
Japanese Ambassador Naoki Ito inaugurated the course at Bangladesh-Korea Technical Training Centre (BKTTC).
This course is being conducted under a project titled 'Women and Girls at the Centre of COVID-19 Prevention', said a press release issued on Tuesday.
The UN Women launched the project last year, supported by the Japan government, to help the returnee workers.
The returnee women workers are now producing masks and running a women café as alternative livelihood under the project.
These are the women who were forced to come back to Bangladesh when the pandemic broke out last year, without any assurance of having any income source, said the press release.
With implementing partner Bangladesh Nari Sramik Kendra (BNSK), these women were given training and necessary equipment to create alternative income-generating opportunities.
When the pandemic broke out, it not only affected the people living in the country but also overseas workers, particularly women, the press release added.
Those in Gulf Cooperation Councils (GCC) countries were made redundant due to the global economic shutdown. Between April-December 2020, a total of 408,408 migrant workers returned to Bangladesh, it said.
Out of them, 12 per cent were women. The premature return due to COVID-19 has been particularly challenging for women migrant workers.
Shoko Ishikawa, country representative of UN Women Bangladesh, and Nafriza Shayma, additional director general of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), were present at the inaugural ceremony.