[Ratna with her mother at the hospital — her tongue, legs and buttocks bearing the marks from the torture endured at the home of Sylhet’s Chief Judicial Magistrate Rafiqul Alam.]
Fourteen-year-old Ratna who worked as a maid for the last 10 months reveals the horror stories of how she faced demonic torture by her employer, the wife of Sylhet’s Chief Judicial Magistrate. If this is the way his home is run, how can he administer justice in the courts? Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, May 3, 2008]
Two weeks ago there was a shocking news report about the brutal murder of a 56-year-old writer. The 23-year-old murderer was a nephew of the woman, and reports allege that he was a drug addict and came to his aunt looking for money. When he was refused, he went ballistic and murdered her. The whole incident was witnessed from the beginning by one person– an eight-year-old girl, called Momota. News cameras caught her describing in gory detail every step of the murder, and finally the murderer running away and warning the girl of dire consequences if she spoke about it to anyone.
How is Momota related to anyone in the house? She’s not. She used to work as a ‘bandha’ (derogatory term for full-time employment) maidservant of the house. Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, January 25, 2008]
When Shafiqul Islam admitted his sick baby girl to one of the best cardiac hospitals in Bangladesh he was somewhat relieved. He thought that if his baby who had a congenital heart problem had any chance of survival it would be at this hospital. And he was right. Lt. Col. Dr. Nurunnahar Fatema, the clinical and interventional child cardiac specialist who did a septostomy at Labaid Cardiac Hospital on 45-day-old Afia spent four hours at the operation theatre and the operation was a success. But Afia’s operation was done at the very last moment. Another day longer would have taken her life. But her troubles had begun much earlier. Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, May 25, 2007]
No one knows how Shaptorshi is spending her days without her mother’s care.
It was the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr in 2005. Nine-year-old Shaptorshi had just come back from Dhaka to celebrate the big festival at her dadi’s house in Barisal. After playing with her friends, Shaptorshi came home to eat iftari and was told that her mother Papia was not feeling well and was resting in a room upstairs. She decided to go to her uncle’s house next door to have iftari and then rushed to the rooftop with her friends. After catching a glimpse of the new moon she rushed home to share the excitement with her family. She never got to hug her mother though. Right after sighting the new moon Shaptorshi’s little world fell apart when she was told that her mother was no longer in this world. Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, May 11, 2007]
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Shumi woke up one day to find herself in a train with another man.
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Seven-year-old Shumon can’t stop grinning and his eyes sparkle with curiosity as he greets us at his adopted home in BNWLA’s (Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association) hostel in Agargaon. He’s one of the many children who has had to face the cruel reality, a child’s worst nightmare, of losing his parents and home and enter an unknown and unfamiliar world. According to BNWLA, in 2006 a total of 367 children went missing from their homes.
Whatever horror Shumon has had to go through in the past few years does not reflect on his face though. He looks genuinely excited about the arrival of people from outside the hostel. He enthusiastically shows us his jigsaw puzzle of the Bangladeshi flag. When I ask him if he has solved it all by himself, he takes apart the whole thing and redoes it to prove that he did indeed solve the puzzle himself. Shumon doesn’t know his last name or the name of his village home; he only knows that somewhere in Netrokona a mother who goes by the name of Saleha is crying out for her lost son. Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star Cover Story, May 4, 2007]
A typical middle-class family employs a single homeworker (varying from age anywhere from 10 to 40, mostly women and girls) who is responsible for all the work in the house. She has to wake up earliest in the morning and prepare breakfast for everyone in the house and also the Tiffin for the school-going children of the house. She has to get the children ready for school. Then she has to clean the furnsiture and sweep the whole house and wash the clothes. After which she has to cut and clean the raw food for preparing lunch. Sometimes she has to clean the toilets. After everyone in the house has had lunch and she has completed eating whatever leftover that has been handed down to her she has to clean the dishes. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Price of Staying in School
by Hana Shams Ahmed
[March 16, 2007]
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One of the reasons for the high rate of drop out is that there is little interaction between teachers and students.
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Thirteen-year-old Tuma has been working at a home in Dhaka for the last three years. When she was eight years old, her parents had enrolled her in a primary school in their home district of Brahmanbaria. She studied there for two years but had to drop out when her sister who worked in Dhaka said that her employer’s relatives were looking for a maid. Her education came to a premature end and that too not for the best of reasons.
It is unfortunate, shocking even, that Tuma is among 48% of primary school students who drop out from the many government and non-government rural schools all across the country. Like Tuma, many come from very poor families, for whom education is not a priority. Families with very low income place more importance on food and shelter, rather than education or healthcare, and thus the alarming rate of untimely dropouts every year.
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, January 12, 2007]
No one has ever been convicted of murdering a home worker.
Five mysterious deaths took place in different parts of the capital city last month. All of the deaths took place in middle and upper-middle class homes of the so-called well-to-do families. And all of the victims were the poor, helpless modern day slaves of our society the silent, overworked and underpaid home workers. The news of their deaths went amazingly unnoticed, taking up little columns of our cold, morning newspapers.
Read the rest of this entry »
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FOLLOW UP
by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, November 10, 2006]
Madhabi Mala now has something to look forward to. (Photo: Andrew Morris)
About seven weeks ago Madhabi Majhi’s life almost came to an end at the house where she worked as a maid. Her employer, Kalpana Majumder allegedly pushed her and her co-worker Moni Mala from the top of a six-storey building. Fifteen-year-old Moni Mala never lived to tell the series of events that led up to that fateful day. 10-year-old Madhabi was rushed to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR). Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star, October 20, 2006]
The only thing they can look forward to on Eid day is more work.
For most of us, Eid is a fun event. Not only do we get a few days off from work with an extra load in our pocket, we also get to spend some quality time with family and friends who otherwise remain at the other end of numerous missed calls and sms’. Food, shopping, hanging out with family and friends without much to worry about for a few days a year might not seem like such a luxury in the true sense. But for many, even considering something like that is an extravagant thought. They work silently among our midst with no demands and most of them will be spending this Eid without family and friends, working their usual unlimited hours. Read the rest of this entry »
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by Hana Shams Ahmed
[Daily Star Cover Story, October 6, 2006]
Madhabi Majhi changed her statement about being pushed from the roof of a six-storied building after her torturer’s sister threatened to kill her.
September 17 began like any other day. The quiet neighbourhood of the residential area in Dhanmondi was still deep in slumber in the early hours of the morning. The numerous schools in every nook and corner were still closed and only a few people were seen walking around groggy-eyed thinking of the day ahead. Suddenly all hell broke loose. Shrieks and screams broke through the early morning air. It was barely six in the morning. The body of a young girl came flying from the rooftop of a house and landed on top of the steel railings of the garage of a neighbouring house. To the horror of bystanders, within moments the body of yet another young girl started falling from the rooftop of the same house, got only momentarily tangled up between the branches of a tree and fell to the ground. Fifteen-year-old Moni Mala died on the spot and 10-year-old Madhabi Majhi was rushed to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR) in a critical condition. Read the rest of this entry »
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Hana Shams Ahmed 