Daughters of toil
Photo: Amirul Rajiv
In the early morning, Dhaka becomes a city of women; from slums and tenements, a long procession of young women, clad in flame red, bright blue or green, fills the streets, their chappals kicking up the dust on the margin of the rough roads. They are garment workers, on their way to the thousands of factories. If women migrants to Dhaka are absorbed by the garments sector, the men rent a cycle rickshaw to join the others who make a kind of living out of pedalling the painted vehicles which waste the muscles and stretch the sinews of their skinny drivers. In the rush hours, the vehicles sometimes become entangled. They move forward slowly, a single entity, a living sculpture of metal and humanity, bodies and machines inextricable; a metaphor of industrialization. In the old port (Sadarghat), the traffic on the river is as congested as on land. Most people arriving in the capital travel by boat: the dispossessed arrive daily from different districts, evicted by river erosion, poverty, a destructive cyclone, CIDR, debt - the natural world and human injustice join forces to rob people of their livelihoods. No one knows the population of Dhaka. From the chaotic overflowing centre to the semi-rural villages on the edge of the city; from slums on stilts over polluted ponds, with their spread of pale pink water hyacinths, to the settlements clinging to the stretches of floodwater from the Buriganga, to the crumbling brick structures in the industrial suburbs - all have one thing in common: insecurity, a daily battle for survival against a degraded environment, the fear of sickness, the reality of malnourishment, the threat of eviction. They do relentless work. They have to work a 12-hours a day; overtime obligatory, at lower rates of pay. There is no medical leave, no treatment available on the premises. They have no maternity leave, no minimum wage. They do not even get letter of appointment. The women never wonder who will wear the shirts and trousers they make. Only survival matters. 'What if we lose our job?' they mutter. They do not dream, they do not even think of anything beyond the endless unrolling of fabric they must turn into collars, cuffs, trouser-legs. It becomes ten o'clock at night. The procession of young women begins in the opposite direction; shuffling feet stir the dust once more; bodies used up by excessive hours of work; even the colours of their clothing fade in the dim sodium lights by which they return to slums and tenements for the brief respite before the next day of a labour without end. Will they be able to have a square meal enjoying all human rights? Will there be any change that will make them happy? Only future will answer this question.
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