Child labor in Bangladesh is common, with 4.7 million or 12.6% of children aged below 14 in the work force. Out of the child laborers engaged in the work force, 83% are employed in rural areas and 17% are employed in urban areas. Employment ranges from brick fields, garbage collecting, street hawker, different factories etc. In 2006, Bangladesh passed a Labor Law setting the minimum legal age for employment as 14. Nevertheless, the enforcement of such labor laws is virtually impossible in Bangladesh because 93% of child laborers are employed at this moment. The main reason is poverty. Due to poverty most of the parents can’t afford to send their children to school. Resulting, children are adopting child labor to contribute to their family and for their future as well.

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A two story house made of bamboo and tin collapsed at Hjipara Jheel, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, on April 15, 2015 at 3:30 PM (local time). There were 14 rooms on each floor, and each room was inhabited by an entire family. The rooms were rented for BDT.3, 500 ($44) per month.

The location of the building on a polluted, swampy wetland meant that it was very difficult for people inside the building to survive, as the rubble from the building pushed into the water.

Casualty rates are currently 12 dead and 100 missing.

Locals claim that the main reason of the collapse was lack of a proper foundation. Add to this the fact that the building owner built an additional floor on the building 5 months ago with the aim of increasing profits. Survivors of the collapse said the building began vibrating and shaking in bizarre ways after the second floor was added.

The collapse highlights the problem of shoddy housing in Bangladesh’s heavily impoverished areas. There was no government oversight or intervention to monitor and prevent the construction and habitation of such a poorly constructed building.  The collapse spurred protests from the Bangladesh Communist Party calling on the government to step up regulations on building safety and exploitation of the poor. 

Sept-Oct, 2014

Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a country of rivers and waterways on which large swaths of its population live. River bank erosion and flooding are common and continuous process due to global warming and rising sea levels. This continuous natural hazard is destroying homes and livelihoods and turning millions of Bangladeshis into homeless climate refugees.

The factors controlling river and stream formation are complex and interrelated. These factors include the amount and rate of water supply from rain and upstream activity, sediment deposited into the stream systems, catchment geology, and the type and extent of vegetation in the catchment. As these factors change over time, river systems respond by altering their shape and course. Unpredictable weather patterns also make flooding a common problem as the course of the rivers shift.

As a result of riverbank erosion and flooding, millions of people are losing their homes and fertile land every year. Most people who lose their homes or land become climate refugees, often pouring into the country’s overpopulated cities penniless and looking for new opportunities.  However, due to overpopulation, migrating climate refugees often arrive in the cities only to find themselves scrounging for food, work and accommodation. Thus, Bangladesh’s most vulnerable citizens are losing their battle against nature and are only made poorer and more desperate.  

May 2014-January 2015

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Located on the delta of the Ganges river, Bangladesh is a country of waterways. There are around 300 rivers in Bangladesh, which make up 24,140 km of waterways. For this reason, river transportation is used more than road or rail transportation.

However, poorly designed transport boats, poor maintenance, recruitment of unskilled boat drivers, and the overloading of transport vessels are resulting in catastrophic boat disasters which kill thousands. It has been reported that in last 15 years there have been 573 boat accidents. These accidents have claimed the lives of more than 5000 people, and left around 1000 people missing and unaccounted for.  

River transport is particularly popular amongst Bangladesh’s poor, as it is much cheaper than overland transport. As a result, most victims of riverboat disasters come from poor backgrounds, as they have no choice but to travel by boat. Many of those who require transport in the first place are the primary breadwinners of a family, as they need to travel to and from work. Therefore, those most affected by these tragic disasters are some of Bangladesh’s most vulnerable. Many of those killed leave behind dependent and impoverished families.

Bangladesh is a densely populated area, estimated about 1.6 million and ranked as 8th among top ten populated country in the world. Some 75 per cent of the population of Bangladesh lives in rural areas and many communities in hard-to-reach regions do not have adequate access to sanitation. In such a densely populated country, where a large proportion of the land regularly floods, sanitation is a continuing challenge. Most of the toilets do not maintain hygiene and mostly situated in the jungle which is approximately 100-300 feet away from their home without safe water connection. Despite improvements, large numbers of people remain at risk from the lack of safe disposal of excreta. Due to sanitation problem people from the rural area of Bangladesh is facing different kind of diseases, mostly diarrhea and Constipation. The most victim of diarrhea is aged 1-4 year old children. Among the death of 1-4 year old children 17% are caused by diarrhea in the rural area of Bangladesh. The main reason of constipation in the rural area of Bangladesh is the distance of the toilet from their home which causes stool incontinence and poor hygiene maintenance. Whereas constipation is a mother of some other dangerous health threat like bladder problem, pregnancy problem, high/low blood pressure, skin problem, under weight, UTI, ALRI and so on. Due to pregnancy problem some women faces hard reality like miscarriage. In the rural areas of Bangladesh pregnancy difficulty especially miscarriage calls a dark future for the women. Resulting some women falls into severe depression while some family forces their boy to marry again or some boy get divorced willingly, which is becoming a severe social tension. This social tension is causing severe mental clot to women. Improving rural sanitation is a complicated challenge, which involves action on several fronts. Every individual needs to be aware of this social tension. Thus government and private NGO’s should have been more active to make apposite solution.

After every five years, the time for general election comes in Bangladesh, bringing with it a fresh season of despair and uncertainty. For the last couple of months, the nation has been passing through sheer horror and uncertainty due to the ongoing fierce political unrest that sparked from a couple of issues.

Recently, the chronic violent political demonstration by the opposition allies started posing threat to the lives of common people. Random usage of handmade bombs on streets forced many to be blind and cut off physical organs, while patrol-bombs, hurled on running vehicles, burnt several people alive.

The unconscionable political demonstration by the opposition parties and the illogical stance of the government are endangering the common people who are now the worst victim of this dirty political game. They talk about democracy, they talk about freedom, they talk about human rights, but where is their ideology when these half-burnt people moan on hospital beds? Where is their democracy when people die burning alive in running bus? Till 10/01/2014 the death toll from Dhaka Medical Burn Unit is 21 and the number of injured and under treatment victims are numerous. “Shame on our dirty politics where power is more important than the welfare of people. Here in Bangladesh, people are the puppets in the hands of our political leaders” – said one of the victims of present political demonstration.