The Bangladesh Army opened its door for women to join as ordinary soldiers for the first time in 2013. In 2013, it was announced in Bangladeshi newspapers through recruitment advertisements that women would be recruited as ordinary soldiers in the Bangladesh Army. In 2015, the Bangladesh Army trained female ordinary soldiers for the first time in its history.^[1][2][3] On the other hand, women are being commissioned in various arms and services of the army since the early 2000s decade.^[4][5]

Now women can become both ordinary soldiers and officers in every corps of the Bangladesh Army except infantry regiment, artillery regiment and armored corps though women can be commissioned in the artillery regiment.

Bangladesh Army was created in 1971 in the Bangladesh Liberation War, and one Bengali female officer from the Pakistan Army's Medical Corps participated in the war, she was Captain Sitara Begum, who was awarded the Bir Protik medal; she was commissioned into the Pakistan Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant in 1970. She took part in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after being in the Comilla Cantonment. She was also the commanding officer of a field hospital shortly after the war started.^[6]

Women are allowed to join as doctors in the Bangladesh Army's medical corps since 1972, it was the only corps till the early part of the 21st century where women could become officers.^{[citation needed]} Susane Giti was the first woman who was promoted to the rank of major-general in 2018, she was from the Medical Corps.^[7][8]

From the early part of the 2000s decade women are allowed to join every corps and regiments as officers like men though the infantry and the armored corps didn't take women as officers.^{[9][additional citation(s) needed]} Zannatul Ferdous became the first female paratrooper in 2013 who was commissioned in December, 2008 from the Bangladesh Military Academy's 59th long course.^[10][11] In 2019, four female officers were made lieutenant colonels and were appointed commanding officers of artillery regiments and engineers battalion.^[12][13][14] Colonel Nazma Begum was the first female contingent commander in United Nations Peacekeeping Mission, she went to UNOCI in 2016 with a 56-member contingent; as a lieutenant colonel she was the first female commanding officer of the 21st Field Ambulance of the Bangladesh Army.^[15][16]

Women were not allowed to join as ordinary soldiers, but from 2013 women as ordinary soldiers were being recruited, primarily they were taken in the Medical Corps, and the first batch of Medical Corps soldier recruits completed their basic military training on 29 January 2015, with a training period of 1 year.^{[17][additional citation(s) needed]} In this batch, total 879 females were enlisted as ordinary soldiers in the army.^[18] In this year, the army got first female pilots, two women named Nazia Nusrat Hossain and Shahrina Binte Anwar became pilots; Nazia was commissioned in the corps of engineers and Shahrina was commissioned in the ordnance corps, both were commissioned in December 2009, both of them completed their first solo flying training successfully in June, 2015.^[19][20][21]

• Women in Bangladesh
• Women in the military by country