Tenure: 22 September 2019 - 23 September 2022

Nasima Begum ndc appointed as the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission by the Hon’ble President of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh with the rank and status of a Judge of Appellate Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court on 22 September 2019. 

She was born on 10 January 1960 in Munshiganj, Bangladesh. She did her Masters’ Degree with Honors’ from the University of Dhaka in Islamic History and Culture and later an M.Phil. degree on Strategy and Development from National Defense College under Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). She joined Bangladesh Civil Service on 3rd April 1983 and started her career in Administration Cadre as an Assistant Commissioner and Magistrate. During more than 35 years of service she served almost 10 years on the issue of development of distressed women and children, transgender, autistic and different disabled persons from various government capacity as Joint Secretary, Director General of Department of Social Services, Secretary of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and finally Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.

During her active engagement in the field administration for around 20 years she had an opportunity to work with people from different walks of life. After the completion of successful service tenure, she got PRL on 9 January 2019 from The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs as Senior Secretary. She was honoured for her contribution in promoting rights and access to education, health, rehabilitation, livelihood, social empowerment of persons with disabilities and transgender in Bangladesh. She made a great contribution to the introduction of the comprehensive education system to help children with neuro-developmental disorder. She received recognition for her work on promoting rights of persons with disabilities including children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at the regional and global level.

As a member of Bangladesh delegation She participated and contributed to the regional and international forums, like, Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Convention for Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), South Asian Initiative to End Violence Against Children (SAIEVAC), etc. as her capacity in respective areas.

She promoted initiatives to mainstream the distressed and marginalized women through the implementation of different comprehensive programmes by the ministry.  She has been working with different national programmes to prevent gender-based violence, ending child marriage and trafficking of women and children through a coordinated approach in collaboration with GOs, NGOs, DPs and Citizen’s Groups. Protection of women in the workplace and ensuring full and equal participation of women in the overall socio-economic development process in Bangladesh has always been her vision.

She played key role in formulating various acts, rules, and action plans under different ministries of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Those include: Disabilities Rights and Protection Act 2013; Neurodevelopmental Disabled Persons Protection Trust Act 2013; Children's Act 2013; Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017, Dowry Prohibition Act 2018; Child Marriage Restraint Rules 2018; Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Rules 2018; National Action Plan to End Child Marriage (2018-2030), and National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women and Children (2018-2030).

She has been deeply engaged in mainstreaming the backward and marginalized classes into development activities and conducted research on inclusive education, special schooling and comprehensive autistic children learning system in the context of developing country like Bangladesh. Moreover, she has done some outstanding literary works on women's empowerment and disadvantaged groups of society.

She is married to Md. Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, a Senior Secretary (PRL) to the Government of Bangladesh. They are blessed with two sons Sayeed Ahmed Chowdhury Nasif and Fahim Ahmed Chowdhury Nayeem.