Farmers are seen carrying their crops affected by an early flash flood in Moulvibazar. Photo: Mintu Deshwara

By Upashana Salam
Apr 22 2017 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

The recent flash floods in the haor regions exemplify the threat of climate change that looms over Bangladesh. It signifies our national ignorance of climate change and its impact on haors and other disaster prone areas. On the occasion of International Mother Earth Day, we focus on why the fate of the haors, with their rich biodiversity and agriculture, should matter to the rest of the country.

The death of Tara Banu should have shocked the country. It should have forced us to sit up and take notice. But all it did was reconfirm that the life and death of farmers, the so-called lifeblood of our economy, does not affect the wider national conscience. At least not as much as the Shakib and Apu odyssey.

There was no Pahela Baishakh celebration for the farmers of the country’s northeastern region this year. Ironic when you think about it, because originally the first day of Baishakh was declared as the first day of the year to ease the burden of farmers, so that it could be easier for them to pay taxes. On Pahela Baishakh, we savoured our panta bhaat as usual without even realising that the farmers of our haor regions had to suffer the destruction of rice paddy fields in over one lakh hectares of land. Oh, the irony of it all!

Thousands of farmers like Tara Banu, who died of a heart attack after learning that flash floods had inundated most of her crops in Habiganj’s Baniachong upazila, lost vast areas of farmland when early flash floods destroyed them in the country’s northeastern region. Out of 20,070 hectares of land in haor areas, 19,500 hectares have been affected, and 87 embankments damaged. Moreover, the flash floods have reportedly caused damage to crops worth around Tk 6,000 crore.

Flash floods are not a new phenomenon for farmers of the haor regions of Habiganj, Sunamganj, Kishoreganj, Netrokona and other northeastern districts. As explained by Professor AKM Saiful Islam of the Institute of Water and Flood Management at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), water levels of the Surma River cross the 6.5 metre mark generally during April, causing flash floods. While farmers are usually prepared for such an occurrence every year as they harvest a major portion of the Boro crops before mid-April when the floods usually hit the region, they were completely taken by surprise by the early floods that inundated their farmlands on March 27.

Farmers sorting out the remains of their submerged Boro crops to use them as fodder at a village in Sunamganj. Photo: Sheikh Nasir

It’s not just the croplands that have been affected by the flash floods. Thousands of fish were found floating in rivers in the initial aftermath of the disaster. And as if to exacerbate the plight of the haor farmers, hundreds of ducks have reportedly been found dead in Sylhet’s Fenchuganj and Hakaluki Haor, where duck farming is a major source of livelihood. Farmers like Anwar Miah and Abdul Quayum, who lost all of their ducks, call this a ‘plague’, a disaster that has ruined everything it touched. What is worrying is that the haor people are far from getting rid of this plague. Experts fear there ,may be a link between the toxicity of the water and possible exposure from open uranium pits across the border in India. Dr Nasrin Sultana, head of the Animal Science Department of Sylhet Agriculture University, further warns that if the fish and birds are consumed, it could be fatal to human beings as well – a warning that only adds to the worries of the stricken residents of the regions.

Haor areas like Hakaluki and Tanguar, designated as Ramsar sites of international importance for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of wetlands, are home to a wide variety of wildlife species, some of which have already been declared vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered. This makes the changes in climate, and their subsequent effects on the regions, even more alarming.

Early flash floods in haor areas could be attributed to climate change, explains Professor Islam. “The intensity and frequency of extreme weather has been changing due to climate change,” he says, which affect agricultural productivity, land use practice, lifestyles and livelihoods of the haor areas.

According to a research study by the International Water Resources Association (IWRA), agricultural crops of haor areas are especially sensitive to different natural disasters, including flash floods, drought, storm surges, etc. Thus, “any alternation of rainfall and temperature cycle, as a result of climate change hampers agriculture production significantly” (A Study on Climate Change Impact on the Livelihoods of the People in Tanguar Haor, Bangladesh). A recent study by BUET also claims that pre-monsoon rainfall and its intensity will mostly likely increase in the future, with the probability of occurrence of flash floods likely to be higher in future due to climate change.

The claim of International Organisation for Migration that around six million people of Bangladesh have been displaced from their homes due to climate change should thus not come as a surprise. In fact, as a result of the flash floods, many farmers of Sunamganj, Kishoreganj, Netrakona, Habiganj, and other northeastern districts, have already sold their cattle and other valuables and left their homes in search of manual work in nearby towns. Farmers usually take agriculture loans to augment their meagre earnings, and it can take them years to repay these loans. And then when they are hit with a disaster of such scale, which makes it difficult for them to harvest even a kilogram of rice, they have no alternative but to sell their cattle and sometimes even their land to repay their loans.
Rashid Ali of Sunamganj heartbreakingly informed this paper (Havoc in Haor, April 14, 2017) that he had to sell four of his seven cows to repay loans he took to cultivate rice. Now he has no idea how to run his family. Under these circumstances, many farmers are forced to become climate refugees, constantly on the move in search of a shelter and an opportunity to earn a livelihood. It is again ironic that while loan defaulters who steal millions of taka from banks are allowed to stand tall and continue with their business in our society, farmers are regularly harassed to repay the relatively insignificant loans they take out and that too at a high interest rate.

This year, International Mother Earth Day, which calls for a collective responsibility to “promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social, and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity” as stated in the 1992 Rio Declaration, will focus on environmental and climate literacy. Which brings us to the question: despite being one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, how literate is Bangladesh about climate change and its effects? We know that there is a ‘thing’ called climate change and that we get aid and grants from international organisations and countries to combat its immensely negative impacts, but how aware are we about these impacts? Do we really care that if we are not careful, if we fail to understand why the fate of the haors will eventually affect the fate of the whole country, we can literally go under?

According to a study titled ‘Predictors of Public Climate Change Awareness and Risk Perception Around the World’, by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, while 90 percent of the public is aware of climate change in developed economies in North America and Europe relatively few are aware of the issue in many developing countries, even though “many do report having observed changes in local weather patterns.” According to the study, while “40 percent of adults worldwide have never even heard of climate change, this rises to more than 65 percent in some developing countries like Egypt, Bangladesh and India.”

Our ignorance regarding climate change and its impacts is probably what enables immense corruption when it comes to mitigating climate change. Locals of haor areas allege that the embankments, which were supposed to protect them from such natural disasters, were faulty, accusing those responsible of construction and repairing works of the embankments surrounding haor areas of corruption. At a roundtable at Dhaka Reporters Unity, farmers further blamed the rising of riverbeds by siltation as one of the main reasons why the flash floods were able to completely destroy the crops. Contractors who built the embankments were hired by the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), and thus it was the responsibility of the said board to ensure that they completed their work in due time and with utmost diligence. A job they failed to do. As a result of faulty, and in some cases absent, embankments, flood water entered croplands from all sides.

According to a leading Bangla daily, the BWDB sought bids for 28 embankments in 116 packages in the last two years; however, the contractors they hired did not manage to complete even 20 percent of the work for which Tk 800 million was disbursed. Deputy Director of ACC, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, while stating that they will be launching a probe into allegations of graft over Sunamganj embankments, also alleged that three engineers and contractors “plotted together to embezzle Tk 250 million without doing anything for the projects.” The report further accused the contractors of bribing the officials with 5 percent commission for securing the works and 15 percent for clearing of bills. The ACC has already formed a committee to check whether fraud was indeed responsible for the wide-scale devastation in haor areas, and the executive engineer of BWDB in Sunamganj, Afsar Uddin, has been withdrawn for his alleged involvement in corruption.

We can cry foul and debate the morality of the authorities who are supposed to be protecting the public from disasters of such magnitude. But does that help Tara Banu and thousands of farmers who lost their homes, their livelihoods to a disaster that could have been tackled? Our helplessness lies in our ignorance, in our inability to care, and our tendency to neglect. The Mother Earth that we hope to save lies in our very heartlands, the areas that give us so much but continue to be ignored and exploited. And until we seriously start focussing on these areas and listening to the cries of the farmers and fishermen who help run this country, the crisis will not be limited to the haor or coastal regions. So we can wait until climate change and the corruption surrounding it finally hits urban areas where the ‘educated’, the ‘civilised’ people live, or we can do everything in our power to ensure that does not happen. The choice is that simple.

The writer is a member of the editorial team, The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Unwanted attention is something that a woman has had to experience at some point of time in their lives. It’s not something new and it doesn’t look like this tendency to pursue someone incessantly, abusing them with words or behaviour, and ‘claiming’ them for their own will disappear from our civilisation anytime soon. When girls are told by their elders and the society in general that boys will be boys, and they should do everything in their power to avoid their advances, the general reaction is to submit to these demands, to ‘cover up’, and not be out alone after a ‘respectable time’. But what does a girl/woman do when the stalker attacks her in the middle of the day, in the midst of thousands of people, within an environment that she considers safe and secure?

Khadiza Akter Nargis, was attacked by her stalker Badrul in broad daylight at MC College in Sylhet while the other students watched first in disbelief, and then in apparent helplessness as she dropped to the ground where the deranged man continued to attack her. Fortunately, Khadiza is alive and though her path to recovery is slow, it is a miracle that she was able to survive such a vicious attack on her life. But fourteen-year old Suraiya Akhter Risha was not as fortunate. Three days after being brutally stabbed by her stalker, who worked at a tailoring shop which she visited, for refusing his ‘romantic’ overtures, Suraiya passed away.

Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK) states that in 2015, 89 girls and women were attacked by their stalkers for refusing their advances while 10 committed suicide due to sexual harassment and 6were killed by their stalkers. In the first six months of 2016, at least 6 people were killed for protesting sexual harassment while 57 others were injured, and 3 girls committed suicide while 4 others stopped going to school. Data from Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), on the other hand, states that in 2016, at least 31reported being harassed while 16 reported being sexually harassed by their stalkers for refusing their advances. It further states that 22 girls were sexually assaulted by their stalkers, which often included their male teachers. These are not just statistics; these are only the number of girls whose torture in the hands of their ‘admirers’ came into the light. There are thousand of others who are scared to report when someone harasses them in fear of retribution to them or their family.

In January 2011, the High Court declared stalking of girls and women illegal and directed the government to consider the offence as sexual harassment. According to newspaper reports this ruling came amid growing incidents of stalking that led many victims to commit suicide. According to the Act, the maximum sentence for sexual harassment is ten years of imprisonment while the minimum is three years. Needless to say, nothing much has changed in the five years since the ruling.

Nur Khan Liton, Acting Executive Director of Ain O Salish Kendro claims that no visible efforts have made by law enforcers to prevent incidents of stalking. “In most police stations, they do not have a cell to address sexual harassment. Nothing much is done in this regard, except for the occasional drives against sexual harassment,” states Khan.

In fact, many girls are wary of reporting sexual harassment because of the harassment they face in the hands of the police. Thirteen-year-old Amina, a house help, says that as she takes evenings classes after completing her work, arranged by a local NGO in her neighbourhood, it’s often a little late by the time she reaches home. She is often confronted by catcallers on her way home, but she says she keeps her head down, wraps her scarf tightly around her head and body, and tries to ignore the verbal abuse. However, one day, one of the catcallers followed her home, all the while telling her that he loved her and would keep her happy if she married him. When this happened more than thrice, she fearfully spoke to one of the female NGO workers who taught her in the school. She immediately took Amina to the police station to file a report but maybe not that shockingly, the police were not that cooperative. They asked awkward questions, and even advised Amina to not take the route back home while promising the NGO worker that they would ‘try their best’ to apprehend the criminal. “I was even more shaken after my encounter with the police,” says Amina. “I told apu (the NGO worker) that I didn’t want to file any case, and would do everything in my power to avoid the guy.” She eventually quit her classes, which allowed her to come back home before sunset. “I’ve always wanted to have an education but at this point, nothing is bigger than my life,” she says, tears welling up in her eyes.

According to the 2011 HC ruling, there should be a provision for specialised doctors who can address the mental trauma of the victims of sexual harassment, and the status of the doctors should be mentioned in the investigation report. It also ordered the government to set up separate cells at every police station across the country to monitor and deal with stalking cases. The cell is required to submit monthly reports to respective superintendents of police, or commissioners of police, who will discuss those at the meetings of District Development Committees under the deputy commissioners to take necessary actions, according to the court directive. Again, most, if not all, of these directives remain unfollowed by the concerned authorities. “According to the HC directive, there should be a committee in every educational institute to deal with sexual harassment cases. Unfortunately, most schools, colleges and universities do not have such committees. And even where there are such committees, they are not effective or the rules are not properly enforced,” says Nur Khan Liton.

And what do you do when a teacher, responsible to ensure the safety of all their students, harasses his female students, often with impunity? In May 2016, Mahfuzur Rashid Ferdous, a teacher of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, was arrested for sexually harassing several of his female students. Initially, the university seemed unwilling to take any step against the teacher but after students staged demonstrations on campus against the teacher, alleging that he has a long record of sexually harassing female students, they were forced to suspend him on April 30.
According to the charge sheet, Ferdous sexually harassed a first year student of EEE in his flat, and captured indecent pictures of her and threatened to release the pictures on the Internet if she did not return her advances or talk about it to anyone else. Moreover, the case statement states that he harassed two other female students in his office and house on two separate dates.

It’s the culture of impunity that allows perpetrators to get away with crimes such as sexual harassment, says Nur Khan Liton. Girls are usually scared to report the crimes in fear that their lives or that of their family members might be danger in case their stalkers get to know of their action, and more often than not, their fears are not unfounded. In one case out of several, stalkers killed the mother of a girl student when she protested the harassment they were forcing upon her daughter. Many times, male family members or teachers are brutally, and sometimes fatally, attacked when they raise their voice against this disgraceful crime. “The culture of impunity is terribly affecting people’s willingness to report such cases.Our legal system is not very conducive in addressing these issues. We do not have an effective witness protection law, and so in many cases we do not find witnesses for such cases,” says Liton.

It’s also the society’s perception of women that needs to be changed if we seek to address the issue of sexual harassment and stop this sense of impunity, says Dr. Syed Md. Saikh Imtiaz, Chairman of the Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka. “In our society, there is an overwhelming presence of the concept of ijjat (honour), and the terms of maintaining one’s ijjat is dictated by men. If women work out of home, men generally think that their control over women will be diminished. They thus try to restrict them by imposing this vague concept of ijjat on them.

We also have to remember that in many cases, stalkers don’t act alone; they have a group of friends who have a similarly deranged mind, and are not afraid of ‘supporting’ their friend in getting the woman he has targeted. This obviously comes from the mindset that women are the rightful property of men, and don’t have any business to deny their romantic overtures. You either accept the proposal or prepare to face the consequences. For most men, it is as simple as that. And our film media has a strong role to play in perpetuating this myth of ‘no means yes’. You will find countless movies where the ‘hero’ stalks and harasses the heroine until she finally realises that she has fallen in love with him and accepts his proposal.

“Objectification of women and girls must stop. It perpetuates the culture of sexual harassment in the society,” says Dr. Syed Md. SaikhImtiaz. “In our media, advertisements and movies, you will find gross examples of objectification of women and girls.”

It is of utmost importance to define stalking as what it is: sexual harassment. The right lexicon might not result in immediate change, but it definitely pushes people to deem this disgraceful crime as something more vicious than the ‘irrational act of a fool in love.’ Words can make a difference and that’s why in the 2011 directive, the High Court directed the government to consider the offence of stalking as sexual harassment. “It is of utmost importance that we stop using the word ‘stalking’ to describe such cases. It should be called sexual harassment. Even the HC declared stalking of girls and women illegal, and directed the government to consider the offence as sexual harassment,” says Dr. Imtiaz.

Despite saying it time and again, we once again want to reiterate our appeal. If we continue to tell our girls that you don’t deserve to study, go out, have a life because someone might attack you, or harass you, what we are essentially doing is turning them into fearful, timid beings who are scared to even attempt to reach their full potential. Right now, the call is to teach our boys how to be human beings before being ‘men’. As men are still the sole bearers of law and order in our society, they should first change their mindset and attitude of thinking of women as their property under some kind of perverse law. It’s only then that girls like Risha and Khadiza can hope to get some justice.

The writers are members of the Editorial Team, The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Recently, a video of two television journalists being attacked by staff of a popular private hospital in Dhaka has been doing the rounds of social media. The reporters were covering an allegation of sexual harassment against a female patient by a staff of the hospital, and were apparently interviewing someone in the management when a group of hospital employees stormed into the room, questioning the presence of the reporters in the hospital, forcefully demanding that the cameraman shut off his camera, before finally resorting to manhandling them. When they protested that they were journalists who were only doing their job and didn’t have any intention to defame the hospital, one of the employees thundered, “Faizlami paisen? Kisher journalist?” [Are you kidding? What journalist?] Reporter Ahmed Saleheen and cameraman Shafiqul Islam, both from Shomoy TV, further claimed that they were verbally abused by the hospital staff; in fact, Shafiqul was also confined in a room for a while where they allegedly beat him up.

When you find the hospital staff abusing journalists for trying to uncover the details behind an incredibly gross incident, it leaves you concerned, not only because it exemplifies the prevalent culture of shooting the messenger to hide the crime, but also because through their actions they prove that the reputation and image of their hospital is far more important than a patient’s allegations of sexual harassment.

While the hospital management has promised exemplary punishment for their staff ‘if’ they were found complicit in the abuse of the journalists, it goes without saying that impunity for any kind of crime against journalists – be it verbal or physical abuse or even murder – has more or less been a mainstay in global culture for quite a while now. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) states that out of 110 journalists killed around the world in 2015, while many died in war zones, the majority were killed in countries supposedly at peace.

The rising numbers of crimes against journalists can be attributed to the neglect of state agencies around the world to bring the perpetrators to justice. In Bangladesh, placed 144th among 180 countries by RSF’s World Press Freedom 2016 Index, crimes against journalists are seldom solved, emboldening perpetrators to continue attacking media workers with a strong sense of impunity. Lest you have forgotten, a journalist couple, Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi, were stabbed to death in their apartment in 2012. While the case received immense and intense media coverage and worldwide condemnation alongside a promise by then Home Minister Sahara Khatun, of apprehending the perpetrators within ’48 hours’, even after four years, the motive behind the murder remains unclear and the case remains unresolved.

The media watchdog group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently posted a Global Impunity Index, listing 13 countries where the murder of journalists could be carried out with no consequence. The index included countries with more than five unsolved murders and measured how “judicial a country is in case of murders of journalists.” Bangladesh placed 11th on the index – a slight improvement from last year – which calculated journalist murders from September 1, 2006 to August 31, 2016. The index showed that the murder of seven journalists remained unresolved and no convictions have been obtained in the country over the past decade. The RSF index also maintained that the government of Bangladesh “took little action in response to violence against media personnel and were sometimes directly involved in violations of their freedom.”

Senior journalist and Editor of Bangla 71 Probir Sikder’s case is testimony to this allegation of RSF. Sikder was arrested in 2015 when, after receiving death threats following articles he had written about a local property dispute, he posted a statement on Facebook alleging that a minister amongst others should be held responsible if he were to be killed or harmed in any way. He also claimed that he was compelled to post the statement after the police refused to take action over the death threats. Sikder further asserted that the police did not record his general diary but arrested him even before the case was filed (The Daily Star, August 20, 2015) While the said minister denied pressing the charges against the journalist in local media, he also claimed that Sikder should be put “behind bars” for writing against him. The charges against Sikder were framed under Section 57 of the ICT Act, which states that anyone convicted of tarnishing the image of a person or the state through writings or electronic means can face a minimum of seven years and a maximum of 14 years in prison. Leaving aside discussions on the validity of the Act, which activists condemn as a threat to freedom of expression, the fact that a defamation suit can lead to the arrest of a person in a democracy is not only a travesty of justice but also contradictory to the Constitution that our state apparatuses want to uphold at any cost.

Defamation seems to have become the new go to phrase that allows people to lodge complaints and demand the arrest of any person who is deemed to have hurt the sentiments of any individual, especially of those in power. In a case that received global attention, 83 defamation cases were filed against the editor of this newspaper, all of which were subsequently stayed by the country’s High Court.

Concerted attacks against media are not uncommon in Bangladesh. Reporters and photojournalists have often been attacked by political party activists at different points when they tried to cover an election, by student politicians when they attempted to report violence in education institutes, by doctors when they sought explanation for a strike called by them. In short, they are the easy targets because they take the news to the public, making the invisible visible, and talking about the unspeakable. In 2015, ten journalists were assaulted by ruling party men during the city corporation elections; some reporters were even robbed of their mobile phones, handbags and cash. Allegedly, polling officers and law enforcers prevented reporters and photographers from entering the polling centres. When a reporter of The Daily Star exited a booth where he snapped pictures of a polling agent illegally stuffing ballot boxes in the presence of an assistant presiding officer, he was asked by a man in plainclothes identifying himself as a policeman to delete the photos and leave the place (The Daily Star, April 29, 2015).

Interesting to note that when defamation (or any other) charges are brought against journalists, it doesn’t take much time for the law enforcing agencies to bring them to book. Under the guise of sedition, defamation, and making statements that are offensive to such and such groups, journalists are repeatedly harassed and diligently scrutinised. The same diligence, unfortunately, does not seem to apply for the members of the journalist community when they are attacked. As stated by CPJ, in the last ten years the only notable progress in Bangladesh in terms of conviction of crimes against journalists was the court order that convicted eight people for the murder of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013.

The fault also lies on the journalist community of the country which stands divided, unwilling to let go of individual self-interest in favour of a freer, more open and critical news media. Self-censorship is so prevalent in our community that the fear of ‘conflict of interest’ often overpowers our need to present facts without bias or favour. This polarisation is probably a main reason why as a community we have failed, and miserably so, to ensure justice for our brethren who were forced give up their lives in the line of duty or are continuously harassed by different agencies for attempting to do their job.

The situation of few convictions of crimes against journalists has become so endemic that we now have a day that calls to end impunity for such crimes! What the world in general needs to understand is that it is only through the implementation of a free and fearless news media that we can achieve the peace that we so desperately seek in these turbulent times.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

This year Bangladesh exceeded all expectations, achieving a GDP rate of over 7 percent. With higher growth, the issue of labour rights is also gaining prominence in our national discourse, with more and more emphasis being given on workplace safety and wellbeing. Those amongst us who are educated are becoming more and more aware of our rights in our workplace, as we unhesitatingly demand for better pay, better facilities, a better life, really. And why shouldn’t we? This is our right as promised by our Constitution and by our state. But there still remains a large portion of our workforce, over 80 percent to be precise, who are not warranted recognition by any of our state apparatuses. When we talk proudly of progress and development, we tend to take for granted that only those who fall under a formalised structure deserve acknowledgement and thereby can demand their rights under the law. We choose to ignore more than half of Bangladesh’s population who, despite their indispensible contribution, are regarded as expendable, replaceable, and thus, undeserving of formal rights or protection.

In Asia, the informal economy accounts for 78.2 percent of total employment. It’s ironic that in a world which still depends on informal employment to run their economies, those working in this sector continue to be treated as necessary but unacknowledged and invisible clogs of society. There is a not-so-subtle disdain for those who make our beds or build our homes; we choose to ignore that as human beings they too might have the same concerns and needs as the rest of us. Most people enter the informal economy because they have no other means to sustain themselves, with no education, skills or capital to participate in the formal workforce. But this does not mean that the risks associated with their work is only theirs to accept; the employment of workers in the informal economy, including housemaids, agricultural labourers, construction workers, day labourers, fishermen, vegetable vendors, etc, might be self-managed but the services they provide is universal.

While those working in the informal economy are not even recognised as ‘workers’ in the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006, the Informal Sector Survey 2010 by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics asserted that the informal sector was the major source of employment in the country, amounting for 89 percent of the total jobs. As self-managed employment is socially unrecognised as work, it becomes easier for workers to be exploited. Thus, you hear of the brutal murder of 13-year-old Rakib Hawladar, whose former employer killed him in an inexplicably violent manner when he switched jobs. You regularly read stories of construction workers falling to their deaths, due to the lack of safety gears or adequate protection. How many times have you looked up a building to see a person dangling from a scaffolding, with nothing but a rope as a measure of safety? Every time I look up at them, I am overpowered by a sense of dread, and am forced to look away after a few minutes when I start feeling dizzy; but these people continue doing their work in the only way they know how to – with confidence galore and little attention to the risk that they are putting themselves in.

Accidents and deaths on site go largely unreported; in the rare occasions that the death of a worker is reported, there is no follow-up from the police, government, media or their own families who, in their struggle to make ends meet with one less earning member, are unwilling to demand compensation that they will not get or go to the court where their voices will be muffled.

A report published by the Asian Development Bank stated that unlike employees working under a formalised structure, workers with irregular employment don’t have any specified working hours, as they often have to work an average of 54 hours a week “with non-commensurate compensation.” Workplace safety is practically unheard of in the informal economy, and there’s no question of holidays, sick days or downtime. Brick kiln and construction workers have scarce drinking water and no toilet facilities to speak of. With wages being disbursed on a daily basis and no bargaining power with employers, they rarely take days off even when they suffer from ailments resulting from having to work long hours in intense heat. Let’s not talk about education or training opportunities, which cannot even be regarded as luxuries in a sector that is not officially recognised by the law.

Given the dearth of official data, it is difficult to even ascertain the particular health problems faced by people working in the informal economy. However, according to a report titled ‘Health Vulnerabilities of Informal workers’ by the Rockefeller Foundation, there is increased risks of malnutrition, physical and psychological disorder, respiratory trouble, heart attack, etc, due to the nature of their work, where they are forced to endure excessive labour, and an unhealthy work environment. More than a million workers who work in the brick kilns of the country, which produce over 12 million bricks a year, often suffer from skin diseases and are susceptible to bronchial infections. As per the report, workers often take drugs “to boost their physical and mental energy” when their body no longer supports their need to earn a livelihood. Rickshaw pullers, for example, are addicted to various drugs as these help them deal with the intense temperament of their work.

Article 15 of Bangladesh’s Constitution ensures guaranteed employment, work with reasonable wage, recreation and leisure for all workers, while Article 20 argues that employment should be a right for every citizen, insisting that workers should be “treated with justice.” Moreover, Article 10 prohibits social exploitation of any worker. However, in this case, there seems to be a clear divide in the treatment of those who are considered “actual workers” and the unrecognised millions who simple cannot be brought under a structure, thereby making it impossible to ensure them the same rights reserved for everyone else. Equality, once more, becomes a tool to bandy around when talking about the achievements of our country and its legal apparatus.

In fact, the Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy 2015, one of the few measures taken to prevent the exploitation of a segment of the workers of the informal economy, is still to be implemented, even though a draft of the policy has already been approved by the cabinet.

There is an urgent need to change our perception toward informal workers, which can help bring a shift in the way they are treated in law and policy. We need to introduce a feasible wage structure, which runs parallel with their working hours and is in sync with their work environment. Moreover, experts have also stressed the need for a pension/insurance scheme, something that has already been undertaken by the Government of Delhi in September 2013 for the informal workers of India. As suggested by lawyer Kawsar Mahmood in a piece he wrote for the Dhaka Law Review, this will offer security for workers in the informal economy during their sickness or after they retire from work. “On registration, workers will be saving a portion of their income per month or per annum in a provident fund where the government will equally contribute,” he writes.

As human beings, we have the right to demand better pay, better working conditions and fair treatment from our employers. It’ll be a shame if this right continues to be reserved for some of us, while the majority are left stumbling, persisting through life as nameless, faceless beings.

The writer is a member of the editorial team, The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh