Sixty-year old Amena, who is barely able to walk properly, was running desperately across Hossain Market with a small tiffin carrier at 11am yesterday. Wiping her tears with a corner of her sari, she explained that her daughter Dolon, a Tuba garment worker, suffered from a kidney problem and was advised by doctors to eat properly. But Dolon hadn't eaten in two days. In a phone call to her mother at 10 in the morning, she had asked her mother to help out with some food because she was having serious abdominal pains.
Dolon is her family's sole breadwinner. She lives with her mother and two disabled brothers - Ibrahim and Sujon. They share an 8-foot by 10-foot room, which is filled to capacity by a bed and a shelf. Although two people would find the bed a tight fit, all four of the family make do with it. Stale rice soaked in water, set aside in a bowl, is all they have been eating for lunch lately.
A tiffin carrier with a cup of rice and some fish curry given to her by a neighbour, was what Amena had clutched to herself as she ran to Tuba Garments to feed her hungry child.
After the death of Dolon's father 14 years ago, Amena had left Jessore to work in the Noyapara area of Dhaka. She moved to the capital with three daughters and two sons. Amena started out as a cook in a hostel and later joined a sweater factory. When she later got sick and stopped working, her youngest daughter, Dolon, took over the family's affairs and found work in the garments industry. Amena managed to marry off two of her daughters.
“Two of my sons are mentally challenged and cannot do anything. I have to feed them everyday,” Amena told the Dhaka Tribune.
“I haven't had a single paisa in my bag for the last three months. It is hard for us to manage three meals a day. For the last 10 days, we have been eating stale soaked rice. Dolon used to earn Tk6000 per month of which Tk2000 was paid in house rent and Tk1000 in electric bills.”
“It has been a year since my daughter and I bought new clothes. I have worn this torn blouse and petticoat for the last four months. Dolon later got a blouse from a friend. We couldn't buy any new clothes or have good food this Eid.”
Dolon, who has been working in the garments sector for the last two years, has a kidney problem. Amena said doctors found holes in her kidney. Because Dolon hadn't been paid, she couldn't buy the medicine she needed. The family's life, already hard, has become harder after Dolon stopped getting paid.
Amena owes Tk8,000 in house rents and Tk4,000 to grocers. The manager at her place of residence, Shorif, threatened to evict them if she didn't pay the rent immediately. Dhaka Tribune correspondents visited several households affected by Tuba's non-payment of dues, and found most in desperate condition.
Abdur Rafiq, the father of Farzana, a Tuba Garments worker, came to Dhaka five years ago. Along with two other daughters and a son, he has been running the family with the small amount of money he earns pulling a rickshaw. Because their mother passed away at a very early age, Farzana has taken responsibility for the family. For the last few months they have been eating rice and dal once a day.
Rafiq quit his job as a rickshaw puller after becoming infected with TB. The family was running on wages of Tk5,700 but their lives have come to a standstill because Farzana hasn't been paid her wages for so long. His younger daughters, Aklima, 7, Rahima, 4 and son Rakib, 2 also live in Dhaka.
Rafiq said: “We, a family of five, have survived without money, eating only rice and dal for so many days. How can we continue? Eid isn't a special day for us, it is special only for the rich.”
We found Hafiz Mia, 65, cleaning the drain water near the tin-shed shanty he has been living in for the past eight months. He said the landlords forced him to vacate the house on the third day of Eid because he had not been able to pay the rent for four months.
“The landlords told me I could live in front of the house if I cleaned the drain,” he told us with tears in his eyes. “They give me bread and a banana everyday,” he added. Nasima and Moyna, his two daughters, have worked at the mismanaged garment company for the last eight months.
Holding up the Tuba garment workers' pay for nearly a quarter has made them an increasingly economically vulnerable group as landlords, grocers and local lenders begin to choke off credit.
