CONFLICT AND POVERTY IN SOUTH ASIA BANGLADESH POVERTY REPORT 2016

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1 CONFLICT AND POVERTY IN SOUTH ASIA BANGLADESH POVERTY REPORT 2016 (Revised: Version ) Mahfuz Kabir * Prepared for South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) Kathmandu * Dr. Mahfuz Kabir is Senior Research Fellow at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), Dhaka. mahfuzkabir@yahoo.com. The first draft paper has benefited from valuable discussions at the country consultation held at Bangladesh Nari Pragati Sangha (BNPS), Dhaka, 11 May The reviewer s comments on the second draft helped materially improve the paper. Research assistance from Nahid Alam and Rashidul Azad is acknowledged. The usual disclaimer, however, applies. 1

2 CONFLICT AND POVERTY IN SOUTH ASIA BANGLADESH POVERTY REPORT Introduction Conflict is a struggle, between individuals or collectivities over values or claims to status, power and scarce resources in which the aims of the conflicting parties are to assert their values or claims over those of others (Goodhand and Hulme, 1999). Conversely, poverty is a multidimensional notion encompassing economic to social, political, and cultural issues. Burton (1997), Nathan (2003), Sandbrook (1982) and Gurr (1970) suggest that poverty emanating from lack of human needs result in conflict. Burton (1997) argues that conflict and instability in developing countries emerge due to denied biological as well as psychological needs pertaining to growth and development. It further suggests that any attempt to trade, suppression, or bargaining of basic needs like food, water, shelter and health care cause conflict. Therefore, when the poor are in the majority and have no prospect of ameliorating their condition, they are compelled to react through conflicts. The chronically poor often lack political voice and organization. Horizontal inequalities and social exclusion, particularly when they coincide with identity or regional boundaries may increase a society s predisposition towards violent conflict. Chronic insecurity increases chronic poverty, but the impacts vary according to a range of factors including age, ethnicity, gender and region. Conflict may reverse pre-existing power relations causing new groups to become politically vulnerable (Goodhand, 2001). Poverty is related to conflict under the underlying dynamics of the process found in specific patterns of inequality, deprivation and marginalization, and the nature of relations within groups and between groups and the State. Conflict obviously brings poverty, and poverty is also thought of a being a cause of conflict. Economic decline and extreme poverty may then reinforce tendencies to resort to violent means. Nevertheless, conflicts are rooted in a complex of factors: imbalance of political, socio-economic and cultural opportunities among different groups, lack of democratic legitimacy and effective governance, absence of mechanism for non-violent conflict management of interest groups. It indicates a causal linkage between conflict and poverty: conflict tends to affect disproportionally the poor, while poverty feeds conflict as the lack of opportunities for poor and marginalized populations lead them to engage in risky behavior (Restrepo et al., 2008). There are multiple hypotheses regarding the central causes of violent conflict in less developed countries. The first set of theories stresses the role that political repression ( grievance factors) play in driving conflict where ethnic minorities that experience discrimination are likely to organize armed insurrections against the state (for example, Chittagong Hill Tracts or CHT in Bangladesh). The second set of theories focuses on economic dimensions in which poverty and falling income are the key to sparking civil conflicts (e.g., violent conflicts in RMG sector in Bangladesh demanding minimum wage in the recent past). There is strong evidence for the poverty-violence nexus poverty and falling income are the critical drivers of violent conflict in less developed countries. The poverty-violence linkage has been found to be the most robust finding in empirical studies on the causes of civil wars (Miguel, 2007). 2

3 Economic and social inequalities are also cited as factors triggering conflicts. The reality and perception of the gap between rich and poor is widening, with growing middle classes in many countries, and a super-wealthy elite now a feature of most societies, including the poorest. The perception and reality of this gap can clearly affect stability, as seen by protest movements around the world in recent years (Lockhart and Vincent, 2013). Given this backdrop, the Bangladesh Country Report 2016 reveals that the country has maintained magnificent economic growth of 6 per cent on average per annum over the last ten years or so, and experienced significant successes in reducing both absolute and extreme poverty. However, there are grave concerns amid the performance of many economic and social sectors, such as widespread income inequality, malnutrition, poverty and vulnerability due to globalization and neo-liberal economic reforms, persistence of poverty and vulnerability pockets (char, haor, CHT, coastal and bordering areas), violence and religion-based discrimination against women, internal displacement and migration, eviction from land due to development intervention and land grabbing, climateinduced migration, violation of child rights, growing religious fundamentalism, and marginalization of the ethnic and language minorities. These pose profound questions regarding impressive performance in economic growth and poverty reduction, which remain implying as meager arithmetic and lead to implicit and explicit conflicts. 2. Trend of Poverty, Spatial Disparity and Inequality 2.1 Trend of upper and lower poverty Bangladesh has performed impressively in terms of vital numbers of poverty, which includes headcount rate (HCR) 1 of upper and lower poverty. As per the latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2010, upper poverty HCR was 31.5 percent, which was 40 percent in It indicates a decline of upper poverty HCR by 1.7 percentage point per annum. The corresponding figures are 35.2 percent in rural and 21.3 percent in urban area. In 2005, these rates were 40.0 percent at national level, while 43.8 percent in rural and 28.4 percent in urban areas. Between 2005 and 2010 the upper HCR reduced by 8.5 percentage points at national level, while it was 8.6 percentage points in rural and 7.1 percentage points in urban area during the period. A distinguished feature of poverty reduction between 2005 and 2010 was a considerable decline of extreme poverty, represented by lower poverty line. Using the lower poverty line (extreme poverty), the HCR is estimated to be 17.6 percent at national level, while 21.1 percent in rural and 7.7 percent in urban areas as reported in HIES In HIES 2005, these rates were 25.1, 28.6 and 14.6 percent, respectively. The percentage of population under the lower poverty line, the threshold for extreme poverty, decreased by 29.6 per cent (or by 7.4 percentage points), from 25 per cent of the population in 2005 to 17.6 per cent in The incidence of extreme poverty declined by 47 percent in urban areas and 26 percent in rural areas. It indicates that urban poverty reduced more rapidly than rural poverty. 1 Poverty HCR provides the estimate of the percentage of people living below the poverty line as a share of total population. 3

4 Table 1: Trend of Head Count Rates of Incidence of Poverty, to 2010 * Upper Poverty Line Lower Poverty Line GDP Growth Per Capita National Rural Urban National Rural Urban (%) GNI (US$) , , , , * Data in Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) method. GDP growth and per capita income are reported for fiscal years. Source: BBS (2012), Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010, and Bangladesh Economic Review (various years). GED (2015a) reveals that the notable progress in poverty reduction was mainly due to decline in population growth rate and changing population structure, increase in labor income, improved infrastructural and telecommunication connectivity, internal migration for formal and informal employment and government s targeted social protection schemes. The notable increase in rural wage, due to greater reallocation of labor from farm to non-farm and from wage-labor to ownfarm, has been argued to have significant impact on poverty reduction. Figure 1: Growth Incidence Curves, 2000 to Source: GED (2015b). GED (2015b) reveals that on the whole, the economic growth seemed to benefit the poorer sections of the society during the period (Figure 5). 2 Despite a dedicated pursuit towards a propoor growth strategy during the period of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) imposed World Bank-IMF from 2002 to 2010, the economic polarization in the country, marked by 2 GED (2015b), Seventh Five Year Plan FY2016 FY2020: Accelerating Growth, Empowering Citizens, Final Draft, Planning Commission, Government of the People s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka, 13 October

5 declining income share of the low income population, continued to rise. It is a clear contradiction between pro-poor growth and income divergence. 2.2 Spatial disparity in poverty Despite this impressive progress at national level, there is still acute regional variation in incidence of poverty. The estimates of HCR of poverty by region using the upper poverty line for 2010 suggest that Rangpur division has the highest incidence of poverty at 46.2 percent, followed by southern salinity- and cyclone-prone Barisal division (39.4 percent) and Khulna division (32.1 percent). Indeed, northern division Rangpur is traditionally stricken by Monga (soft famine) and there are many chars (riverine islands) in which large proportion of people live with hardship, social deprivations and marginalization. On the other hand, Chittagang division has the lowest HCR of incidence of poverty at 26.2 percent followed by Sylhet division at 28.1 percent and Rajshahi division at 29.8 percent. The incidence of poverty has significantly reduced in Chittagong division compared with other divisions which reduced to 26.2 percent in 2010 from 34.0 percent in It may be due to its high reduction in urban area (11.8 percent) during the period. Figure 2: Incidence of Poverty by Division, 2010 (%) Sylhet 50 Barisal Chittago ng Rangpur Dhaka Rajshahi Khulna Lower Poverty (%) Upper Poverty (%) Source: Based on BBS (2012), Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey The incidence of lower poverty HCR shows nearly the same pattern. The lower poverty HCR in 2010 show that Rangpur division has the highest incidence of poverty (30.1 percent) while Chittagong division has the lowest poverty (13.1 percent). The highest reduction of incidence of extreme poverty in 2010 was registered in Khulna division, which was 16.2 percentage points followed by Barisal division (by 8.9 percentage points) compared to that of Conversely, incidence of lower poverty in Sylhet division using the poverty line remained virtually stagnant 20.7 percent in 2010 and 20.8 percent in

6 Figure 3: Incidence of Poverty in Bangladesh by District, 2010 Upper Poverty (%) Lower Poverty (%) NOAKHALI MEHERPUR BOGRA MANIKGANJ GAZIPUR RANGAMATI SYLHET NAWABGANJ KHAGRACHHARI PATUAKHALI SUNAMGANJ PANCHAGARH THAKURGAON MUNSHIGANJ BRAHMANBARIA LAKSHMIPUR PABNA BHOLA NILPHAMARI NATORE FARIDPUR COMILLA KHULNA BANDARBAN RAJBARI BAGERHAT MAGURA SATKHIRA SHERPUR CHANDPUR SHARIATPUR KURIGRAM Source: Based on BBS, World Bank and WFP (2015), Poverty Map

7 Map 1: Regional Variation in Incidence of Poverty in 2010 Source: BBS, World Bank and WFP (2015), Poverty Map

8 The districts which have the highest incidence of moderate poverty are Kurigram (63.7 per cent), Barisal (54.8 per cent) and Shariatpur (52.6 per cent), while the lowest poverty is observed in Kushtia (3.6 per cent), Noakhali (9.6 per cent) and Chittagong (11.5 per cent) (Figure 2). The highest poverty is also seen at Char Rajibpur upazila (68.8 per cent) in Kurigram district. The incidence of poverty in this district is more than double of the national average. On the other hand, the prevalence of child undernutrition is much higher than the incidence of poverty. In 2014 the child undernutrition was 36.1 per cent at national level with wide regional variation (NIPORT, 2015). Table 2: Rural-Urban and Regional Differences in Poverty, 2010 Lower Poverty Line Upper Poverty Line National Rural Urban National Rural Urban Total Barisal Chittagong Dhaka Khulna Rajshahi (Old) Rajshahi (New) Rangpur Sylhet Note: Data in CBN method. Source: BBS (2012), Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey Bangladesh has achieved statistical success in reducing the acute form of poverty, known as extreme poverty, over the years where the extremely poor have been able to escape the poverty trap in considerable numbers. However, despite the impressive growth of on average of more than 6 per cent per year over a decade or so, extreme poverty is far from being eradicated (Sen and Ali, 2015). There is still a glaring presence of extreme poverty with significant variation by region. Overall, the incidence of extreme poverty was about one-third in urban areas of that that in rural areas in In Dhaka division extreme poverty was lowest in urban areas followed by Chittagong and Sylhet. On the other hand, a large portion of all three divisions is ridden by extreme deprivation (shown in Map 2). 3 It implies that even though the country has achieved quantitative reduction in extreme poverty to a large extent, the incidence of extreme deprivation has created a paradoxical situation for which the population that has already escaped the extreme poverty trap is still burdened with considerable social deprivation. 2.3 Urban poverty During the period from 1991 to 2010, the incidence of urban poverty has witnessed a declining trend with significant variation by region. In 2010, it was 21.3 percent at the national level, while it was 39.9 percent in Barisal, 35.8 percent in Khulna, 30.7 per cent in Rajshahi, 18 per cent in Dhaka, 11.8 per cent in Chittagong, and 15 per cent in Sylhet. However, rapid rise of urban population poses a challenge to urban planning due to expansion of informal and low-income settlements on the one hand, and pressure on the job market resulting in high rate of unemployment 3 B. Sen and Z. Ali (2015), Ending Extreme Poverty in Bangladesh During the Seventh Five Year Plan: Trends, Drivers and Policies, Background Paper for the Preparation of the Seventh Five Year Plan, GED, Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka. 8

9 and underemployment on the other. Still, the urban poor and low income people, many of whom live in slums have little or no awareness or their equal rights and opportunities as citizens, but who still supply the gigantic low-paid informal sector workforce of workers and wage laborers at export-oriented readymade garments (RMG). In addition, the absolute number of the urban poor is increasing at a faster rate (as evident from the households living in slums) than that of the rural poor in the country signaling an ominous state of the urbanization of poverty. The urban poor lag far behind the rural poor in receiving social protection; they receive only 14.9 percent of all social protection benefits while their rural counterparts are blessed with 85.1 percent of social protection programs. Map 2: Regional Variation in Extreme Poverty and Deprivation, 2010 Source: Sen and Ali (2015). 9

10 The urban poor, who predominantly comprise slum populations, are severely exposed to lack access to housing, basic utilities, education and health. Evidence suggests that there is an intuitive correlation between the increasing number of urban poor and rising slums. In the Census of Slum Areas and Floating Population 2014 (BBS, 2015c), a total of 13,938 slums have been counted in urban areas, which is 366 percent higher than that of The slum dwellers that experienced fire-led and legal evictions in the cities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi have been scattered into smaller groups in many smaller slums. According to the Census, a total of 592,998 slum households are identified, which is 77 percent higher than that of 1997, while a total of 22,27,754 people lived in those slum in 2014, which is 214 percent higher than that of Figure 4: Distribution of slums by slum size and division, 2014 Rangpur 3% Rajshahi 3% Sylhet 10% Barisal 1% Chittagong 24% Khulna 12% Dhaka 47% Source: BBS (2015c), Preliminary Report on the Census of Slum Areas and Floating Population The urban poor are also subject to violence, exploitation and marginalization, experience food insecurity and malnutrition, and are left voiceless and victimized by rent seekers. They also remain under constant threat of occupational, residential and social vulnerabilities as well as negative intervention of the state, which aggravates the state of poverty in urban areas and creates tension in the urban society Depth and severity of poverty Poverty Gap (PG) shows the average distance of poor households from the poverty line. There were also positive changes in terms of depth of poverty between 2005 and 2010 as evident from PG. The estimated PG was 3.1 percent at the national level in 2010 using the lower poverty line, which recorded a reduction of 1.5 percentage points from The PG was 6.5 percent in 2010F for the upper poverty line, which declined by 2.5 percentage points over These imply that the average consumption level of the people living below the poverty lines improved during this period. Using the lower poverty line, Chittagong division had the lowest PG (2.2 percent) in 2010, and it was the highest in Barisal division (5.4 percent). Conversely, Sylhet division recorded the 4 M.A. Eusuf, Addressing urban poverty: Absolute number of urban poor increasing, The Financial Express, Dhaka, 12 April

11 lowest PG (4.7 percent) in 2010 using the upper poverty line, while it was the highest again in Barisal division (15.5 percent). However, the PG has declined in the other divisions between 2005 and Table 3: Poverty Gap (PG) and Squared Poverty Gap (SPG), 2010 PG SPG National Rural Urban National Rural Urban 2010 Lower Poverty Line Upper Poverty Line Lower Poverty Line Upper Poverty Line Source: BBS (2012), Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey The severity of the poverty, represented by the Squared Poverty Gap (SPG), has also decreased during this period. It was 0.8 percent in 2010 at the national level using the lower poverty line, which was a sharp decline from 1.3 percent of The SPG was 2.0 percent in 2010 using the upper poverty line, which was 2.9 percent in On the other hand, Sylhet division had the lowest SPG (1.3 percent) in 2010 using the upper poverty line. 2.5 Income inequality Despite an apparently impressive success in decreasing the proportion and number of poor people, the rising income inequality has remained as a considerable policy challenge although the government has pro-poor redistributive policy and considerable public spending on social protection. Persistently high income inequality has been creating social polarization and mass discontent. Data show that over the last two decades the Gini coefficient of income is generally on the rise, from of to in 2010 at the national level. However, after continuously increasing up to 2005 (0.467 in 2005), it decreased slightly by over the next five years. It implies that income share of higher deciles decreased a little bit in 2010 compared to Figure 5: Trend of Income Inequality National Rural Source: Based on HIES reports (various years). 11

12 On the other hand, the income inequality remained the same in urban areas in 2000 and 2005 while it decreased in Conversely, rural areas where 70 per cent of the population live have been witnessing an increasing economic polarization, which is evident from rising income Gini coefficient (Figure 3). Table 4: Percentage Share of Household Income National Rural Urban National Rural Urban Total Bottom 5% Decile Decile Decile Decile Decile Decile Decile Decile Decile Decile Top 5% Source: BBS (2012), Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey The concentration of income has slightly decreased between 2005 and 2010 even though it remains high. In other words, economic polarization is quite strong and persistent. In 2010 the share of top 5 percent households was a quarter of the total national income (24.61 percent) while it was only 0.78 percent for the bottom 5 percent households. On the other hand, while the bottom 20 population had only 5.22 percent share in national income, top 20 percent owned more than half of the national income (51.79 percent) in In fact, the share of the bottom 20 percent has decreased between 2000 and 2010 both in national level and at rural areas (Figure 6). The first five deciles continue to share only percent of total income, although they comprise half of the population (Table 4). It implies that the income share between poor and non-poor population has been diverging, which is leading to an implicit state of contradiction in the polity and society. Figure 6: Share of the Poorest 20 Percent Households in National Income (Percent) National Urban Rural Source: Based on HIES reports (various years). 12

13 Improved access to markets is an important element of rural development and poverty alleviation. The following two maps illustrate the relationship between poverty and market access. The Map of Travel Time to Dhaka indicates longer travel time using a darker color. Travel time was estimated from the road network information. Comparing the Map of Travel Time to Dhaka with the Poverty Map, it seems apparent that there exists a high linkage between travel time to Dhaka and poverty incidence. For example, the coastal areas and the Monga areas are both far away from Dhaka and both are very poor. In contrast, the areas between Dhaka city and Chittagong city record less travel time to Dhaka and lower poverty rates (Map 3). Map 3: Poverty Map vs Map of Travel Time to Dhaka (hour) 2.6 Human and gender dimensions of poverty The human dimensions of poverty demonstrate different trend compared to progress in national poverty statistics. A term called working poor 5 can be used to show that the traditional poverty is inadequate to represent the miseries of a portion of people who are recognized by the state as non-poor are actually poor due to their low income. Even though the proportion of the working 5 The proportion of employed persons living below $1 (PPP) per day, or the working poor, is the share of individuals who are employed, but nonetheless live in a household whose members are living below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, (measured at 2005 international prices), adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). Thus working poverty rate can be calculated as employed persons living below poverty line divided by total employment. 13

14 poor is going down, the incidence of this poverty is still high (41.7 per cent in 2010), and bigger than that of upper poverty HCR. Figure 7: Proportion of Employed People Living Below US$1 (PPP) per Day Source: Table 5a: Trend of Human Development Index (HDI) HDI Inequalityadjusted HDI Gender Development Index Gender Inequality Index (2008) Source: UNDP Human Development Report (various years). Table 5b: Gender Gap Index of Bangladesh Economic participation & Opportunity score (Rank) Educational attainment score (Rank) (127) (111) Health and survival score (Rank) (122) Political empowerment score (Rank) (10) Overall score (Rank) (68) (75) (121) (115) (124) (7) (86) (69) (82) Source: The Global Gender Gap Report 2014, World Economic Forum. In the last five years there were some improvements in Bangladesh s Human Development Index (HDI). However, for most of the time the country remained in the list of low HDI and very recently it came in the bottom of medium HDI group. However, after adjustments for inequality, the score of HDI decreased significantly. However, the country s Gender Development Index (GDI) score is quite impressive. But its score in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) is still high even though it reduced sharply since 2010.

15 Table 6: Multidimensional Poverty Index Year and survey HDRO specifications Index Value Headcount (%) specifications Index Value Headcount (%) 51.3 Population in multidimensional poverty Headcount million 75.6 Intensity of deprivation (%) 47.8 Population near multidimensional poverty (%) 18.8 Population in severe multidimensional poverty (%) 21 Contribution of deprivation in dimension to overall poverty (%) Education 28.4 Health 26.6 Living standards 44.9 Population living below income poverty line (%) National poverty line PPP US$1.25 a day Source: UNDP (2015), Human Development Report As per the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 6, about half of the population (49.5 percent) were multi-dimensionally poor in 2011 while estimated 29.9 percent population lived under the national upper poverty line in that year. It implies that about 75.6 million people were affected by multi-dimensional poverty. The intensity of deprivation was also quite high (47.8 percent). Although in education and health the country is doing well, which is represented by lower deprivation in these two dimensions, deprivation in living standard is acute. Also, the proportion of people living under the international extreme poverty line is about fifty per cent higher than that of the national moderate poverty line. It implies that the prevalence of poverty and deprivations is under-represented in the national statistics. To realize poverty as a multidimensional notion going beyond the narrow-based income poverty lines, national poverty HCR and maps need to be estimated multi-dimensionally. Figure 8: Underweight Rates for Children under 5 Years Source: NIPORT (2015) for 2004, 2007, 2011 and 2014; MICS for 2013, others BBS. The, prevalence of hunger can be regarded as a dimension of food poverty, which is reflected through underweight children (6-59 months) and quantity of under-nutrition. The prevalence of Bangladesh s under-nutrition has been widespread despite visible success in reduction of poverty. 6 The MPI was developed in 2010 by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme, which replaced the previous Human Poverty Index (HPI). The dimensions of MPIs include education, health and standard of living. 15

16 According to NIPORT (2015), the proportion of underweight of children was 32.6 percent in 2014 (female 33.1 percent and male 32.2 percent), which is much lower than that of 1990 (66 percent). There is a significant regional variation in underweight rate. It is found to be the highest in Sylhet division (39.8 percent) and lowest in Khulna division (25.5 percent). The statistics are somewhat similar to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) , where the underweight rate for under-five children is estimated to be 31.9 percent. Table 7a: Progress in social indicators Indicators Net girls primary enrolment ratio, Women s Adult Literacy Rate (15+) (2013) Share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector (%) (2013) Female members in the Parliament as % of total seats (2001) Maternal Mortality Ratio (per 100,000 live births) (2013) Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel (%) (2004) Adolescent birth rate (per 1,000 women) Source: GED (2015), MDGs Progress Report Despite progresses achieved in terms of social indicators related to women s progress, women s participation in the economic sphere is the story of reluctance. Less than one-third of women are involved in non-agricultural wage employment, but they are being paid about three-quarters wage of their male counterparts. Only one-third of women (33.5 percent) of workable age group participate in the labor force, while the corresponding figure of their male counterparts is 81.7 percent. Thus, a significant proportion of women s services, which could have been utilized for national development and women s economic empowerment, are foregone. However, one of the likely factors of women s lesser interest in participating in the labor force is their considerable vulnerability to violence. Table 7b: Participation of Labor in Mainstream Economic Activities Indicator Gender % of women in wage employment in agricultural sector Female % of women in wage employment in non-agricultural sector Female Labor force participation rate Female Male Unemployment rate Female Male Source: GED (2015), MDGs Progress Report The Constitution of Bangladesh guarantees equal rights for both men and women in all spheres of state and public life. However, violence against women and girl children is manifested by different forms of sexual violence including rape and eve-teasing; discrimination and violence based on ethnicity, religion, caste, small ethnic status, disability or work; dowry-related violence; sexual harassment; forced and/or early marriages; acid attacks; psychological violence in custodial settings; domestic violence by the household members especially the male ones; economic exploitation and cross-border trafficking; etc. The majority of abused women never seek help from 16

17 the law enforcing agencies (UNECE, 2010). 7 Violence against women and girls remains widespread due also to administrative failure, lack of social resistance and proper awareness and training for resistance. Moreover, social attitude, traditional culture and behavioural norms are responsible for widespread violence against women/girls (VAW/G) in the country. In other words, VAW/G occurs at the family, community, public and marketplace, workplace, educational institutions and the state machinery at large. Figure 9: Trend of Gender Parity Index in Education Primary Secondary Tertiary Source: Based on GED (2015), MDGs Progress Report Bangladesh has been maintaining gender parity at primary and secondary education level since 2000 (Figure 9). It has been due mainly to the consistent support of the government through financial assistance (stipend) at different levels of education and changing social attitude towards female education. Female education has been encouraged to empower women and to increase their involvement in the socio-economic activities. However, although primary and secondary education is free for girls in the country, dropout still exists, especially among girls. Despite this significant overall progress, some notable constraining factors have been hindering further progress and reaping of full benefits of the investment on female education. The MDGs Progress Report 2015 reveals that the impressive performance of girls enrolment at the primary level does not continue at the upper levels. Factors behind the dropout and low enrolment of girls at the secondary level include violence against girls, restricted mobility, and lack of adequate girls hostel facilities among others. The same reasons are responsible for lower enrolment of girls in tertiary education. As high as three-quarters (76 per cent) of girl students at university level face sexual harassment. 8 Figure 10: Perception about VAW by Place of Occurrence 7 UNECE. (2010, March 2). Interviewer s manual: Violence against Women survey using the UNECE VAW Module. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: %282+March+2011%29.doc?version=1 8 Abul Barkat et al. (2012), Situational Analysis of Sexual Harassment at Tertiary Level Education Institutes in and around Dhaka, study conducted for MDG Achievement Fund with support from UN Women, Human Development Research Centre (HDRC), Dhaka. 17

18 Parent's house Working place Solitery Place/Public place/traveling site Coaching Centre Bus/Launch/Train Station Husband's house Market Educational Institution Hospital/Nursing home/health Centre Transport/Road Other Physical Psychological Sexual Source: Based on BBS (2013), Violence Against Women Survey The Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey 2011 data reveals that most rape cases take place at the age between 10 to 14 years (41.8 per cent), followed by 15 to 19 years (34.3 per cent). 9 It indicates that girls who are at the age of attending educational institutions are more exposed to this extreme kind of violence. It is also likely to act as a constraining factor in their access to education. On the other hand, women and girls perceive educational institutions and coaching centres as risky places for violence against them. Indeed, increasing incidence of violence against girls at schools, coaching centres and Madrasas especially by teachers is getting reported in news media, which is creating adverse impression about educational institutions for girls among family members and society Thus, a psychological resistance of the female students against schooling leads to dropout particularly at secondary and higher secondary levels. The latest information on rape of this year supports the data of VAW Survey. It reveals that during January-September 2015, as per cent of all females raped were from the age group of 7-12 years, where per cent was from age of years. 10 The girls of these age groups corresponds to primary and secondary schools. It implies that VAW manifested in rape events acts against girls education both at primary and secondary levels. The VAW Survey reveals that majority of unmarried female respondents perceive that they are vulnerable to sexual violence both in urban and rural areas. Thus, VAW is working against girls education and instigates them to get married. Table 8a: Trend of Violence Against Women: Rape Adult Children Unidentified Killed Suicide after Victims of Total after rape being raped gang rape BBS (2013), Report on Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey 2011, Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka. 10 Ain o Shalish Kendra database, available at: 18

19 Source: Odhikar. Response to most of the violence against women and girls ends up with no formal complaint to law enforcing agencies, although the government has established one-stop crisis centers to provide necessary services to survivors. In general, VAW creates psychological pressure against schooling and the victims tend to leave school. In effect, the girls again become the victims of early or child marriage of unbearable sufferings. As high as 64 per cent of female child get married before 18 years of age, while one-third of girls years of age are married in 15 years of age. Thus, considerable amount of public investment on girl students turn out to be ineffective due to child marriage. 11 Some of the most common forms of main acts of violence committed against mainly poor and marginalized women include dowry killings, rape, sexual harassment and stalking, acid attacks, physical and mental abuse and sex trafficking. Nearly two-thirds of women across class in Bangladesh are victims of some forms of violence. Gender based violence is on the rise. In 2004, there were 2,981 cases of dowry related violence, which increased to 4,563 cases in Gender discrimination also leads to women having fewer opportunities. Table 8b: Dowry related violence against women Killed Physically Committed Acid Total Abused Suicide violence Source: Odhikar Many women in Bangladesh, most of whom are poor, fail to report violence committed against them because there persists a stigma surrounding rape, abuse, and domestic violence in the country. The police are also likely to blame the victim and favor the side of the abuser in the case of poor women. From 2010 to 2012, the Bangladeshi police received 109,621 complaints of VAW. However, the police determined that only 6,875 of these complaints were genuine and in need of further investigation. The stigma surrounding violence against women means that many poor women do not get the justice they deserve especially because judicial procedures are costly, time consuming, full of harassment and biased against the poor. In 2011, there were 420 recorded cases of rape in Bangladesh, and only 286 reached the prosecution stage. About half of married women in Bangladesh were physically and/or sexually abused by their husbands. If the court deems that domestic violence is likely to occur, it can either relocate the victim to a shelter or evict the perpetrator of the violence. 11 Mahfuz Kabir (2015), Budget Allocation for Teachers Training and Skills Building of Girls for Preventing VAW/G, keynote paper at National Seminar organized by Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS) with support from UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, BRAC Centre Inn, Dhaka, 11 November

20 Table 8c: Violence at RMG Industry, Died Injured by police during demonstration Injured by RMG authority during demonstration Injured during fire Injured due to stampede Other injury Total Incidents ,145 2, ,734 8, , , , , ,656 Source: Odhikar. RMG is traditionally portrayed as the poor women s realm of economic empowerment in Bangladesh. However, it still remains an oppressive industry where women s right to protest is significantly curtailed through attacks by police and factory administration in the name of maintaining law and order despite the accord (Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh) and Bangladesh Sustainability Compact signed by the government to permit the RMG workers to be united for realization of their rights. In the last two years many of the RMG workers were injured by police and RMG administration (Table 8b), which led to violent suppression of their rights. Therefore, agitation and discontent may create violent conflict at any moment. Thus, a nexus can be observed among women, poverty and violence in Bangladesh. Usually women from poor and disadvantaged families with no education are most vulnerable to violence more from their husbands and at the society. Poor women and children are more vulnerable to violence because they often live in uncertain and risky conditions of life. 12 However, gender inequality works as the root cause of VAW/G. Poor working women higher levels of abuse; working women experience violence more by their intimate partners. 13 Women s vulnerability is pervasive in country, which is fueled by age-old patriarchal social structure, poverty and social backwardness. Child and early marriage, dowry and polygamy intensify domestic VAW/G. At the social level VAW/G are eve teasing, to stalking, rape and gang rape, disfiguration, torture and killing. Girls, adolescents and underage married women experience physical, sexual, psychological and emotional harm, leading even to suicide, due to extreme forms of violence against them Poverty and fundamentalism Pervasive poverty and inequality have been leading to economic and social polarization in the country. A large number of poor children are going to Madrasas (Muslim religious educational institutions). They are being utilized by politicians who exploit the growing frustrations and unemployment and attendant poverty of the people. In Bangladesh, fundamentalism is experimenting effectiveness of various politico-economic models. This politico-economic organizational model of fundamentalism intends to create an economy within the mainstream economy, a government within the government and a state within the state aimed ultimately 12 USAID (2015), Gender and extreme poverty, Washington, DC: USAID. 13 ICDDRB and Population Council (2013), From Evidence to Policy: Addressing Gender-Based Violence against Women and Girls in Bangladesh, A report submitted to Department for International Development, January UNICEF (2011), From young girl to adolescent: What is lost in Transition? Dhaka: UNICEF Bangladesh. 20

21 at capturing the state power. The institutions and businesses used to spread religious fundamentalism are financial institutions, educational institutions, pharmaceutical-diagnostic and health-related institutions, religious organizations, trade and commercial establishment, transport related organizations, real estate, news media and IT, local government, NGOs, etc. 15 The initiation of religious politics and extremism can be traced back in the second half of 1970s when secularism was dropped from the constitution of Bangladesh and Jamat-e-Islam was revived in the politics. Political Islam has been patronized by the State for a quite long time since then. 16 Quite a few religion-based political parties enjoyed favourable atmosphere during 1980s and 1990s. Returnees of Afghan War and Jihadists who fought long with Talibans also mixed with ordinary mass during 1990s, which provided solid foundation for spreading religious extremism in Bangladesh. Emergence of several fundamental religious entities, such as Jamaat-ul- Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Hizbut Tawhid, Ansarulla Bangla Team, Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, etc. is a consequence of political patronage of Islam and local spillover of Afghan Jihad, which took advantage of pervasive poverty, inequality and social deprivations. Recently Bangladesh witnessed a number of violent events in Bangladesh fueled by these groups. 17 Photo 1: Recent street violence in Bangladesh fueled by religious fundamentalism Photo: The Daily Star. In the current fiscal year ( ) the Bangladesh economy has come out of the medium growth trap by recording 7.05 per cent GDP (gross domestic product) growth. It is one of the most significant achievements of the economy in the last two decades. The service sector is becoming unable to absorb the increasing labor force of the country, and industry is perhaps maintaining a status quo in providing jobs. Agriculture with its meagre growth and peeling grace is still carrying the burden of about half of the jobs, which is perhaps decreasing the interest of the population to participate in labor force over time. This is clearly a paradox given the increasing size of the 15 Abul Barkat, Political Economy of Fundamentalism in Bangladesh, 06 March Bertil Lintner (2004), Religious Extremism and Nationalism in Bangladesh, in Satu P. Limay, Mohan Malik, and Robert G. Wirsing (eds.), Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia, Hawaii: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, pp Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury, Religious extremism in Bangladesh, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 8 March

22 population and demographic dividend. While labor force participation rate was 59.3 in 2010, it came down to 57.1 in As evidenced in the Labor Force Survey (LFS) 2013 and MDG Progress Report 2015, both males and females are demonstrating less interest to take part in the labor force. We are heading towards a realm of relatively stumpy working population compared to total and youth population due perhaps to a continuum of bad signal from the market. In the last two years only 0.3 million jobs have been created while the annual new job creation was about 1.3 million in between 2010 to Despite an impressive growth, the economy is becoming increasingly unable to offer jobs to its growing labor force. Figure 11: Politico-economic organizational model of religious fundamentalism Source: Barkat (2013). In other words, the paradox of economic development and attaining middle-income status by the country is creating burgeoning conflict as due to low returns and job satisfaction, women and youth are reluctant to become part of the labor force; lack of interest among females and youths is seen at job market due to low return and satisfaction. It This state of affairs has been creating enormous frustration in the society. Increased stress levels hand in hand with decaying social values and conflict of ideas is helping the spread of fundamentalist ideas. Increasing stress and decaying social values and creating conflicting situations in the recent years. Very high and persisting income disparity over the years translated economic development in terms of higher per capita income into difficult life for the poor due to prolonged economic polarization and decreasing income share at the bottom mass. The government s social protection spending has grossly failed to address the difficulties and stressful life of marginalized and vulnerable population and left with meagre physical and human resources due to institutional and social exclusion from the mainstream. It led to severe depression, hopelessness and frustration, especially among the young population. It has been captured by the politics of religious 18 Mahfuz Kabir, The spectre of jobless growth haunts the economy, The Financial Express, Dhaka, 20 April

23 fundamentalism and extremism; a part of the such younger population has been absorbed in their businesses and through educational institutional, and multiplied the ideology among the common people, especially poorer groups as an alternative to feeble public intervention in their lives. Thus, spread of fundamentalist activities is an adverse outcome of the society despite manifold efforts of poverty eradication and women s empowerment by the government and non-government actors in Bangladesh. The conflict between secular and fundamental thoughts has therefore become inevitable, which caused loss of life of young secular activists over the last couple of years. 3. Poverty, Deprivation and Conflicts of the Minorities 3.1 Poverty and violence against language, religious and ethnic minorities Some of the most marginalized groups in the society are language minorities (stranded Pakistanis) in Geneva camps and Rohingya (Myanmar Muslim) refugees living in the most inhumane conditions of life. The Bangladesh government estimated 30,000 Rohingya Muslims residing in two government-run camps in Cox s Bazaar near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border as refugees from Myanmar, while the estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Rohingya Muslims living outside of the camps elsewhere in Bangladesh are treated as illegal immigrants. In February 2014, Bangladesh adopted a national strategy to respond to the Rohingya Muslim population in the country, which includes providing more humanitarian assistance and engaging Myanmar. In November 2014, the government decided to move the two UNHCR-supported refugee camps to improve the current living conditions of the refugees, which are inhumane. Biharis (stranded Pakistanis) 19 have remained stateless for 45 years, as Bangladesh continues to host about 250, ,000 Biharis who live in 66 camps in 13 regions across the country. They live in overcrowded quarters with poor drainage and sanitation systems and inadequate education, and health care facilities. There is hardly any initiative to improve their current miserable living conditions. Most of them is involved in day labor, barbering, preparing food or rickshaw pulling. Their life expectancy is believed to be about two thirds of the country s average. Most of their fundamental human rights are either denied or curtailed. There are occasional conflicts and murders of the stranded Pakistanis, one such tragic incident occurred in Kalshi, Dhaka in June 2014 in a local conflict. Overwhelming majority of populations are Muslims in Bangladesh (88.6 per cent), followed by Hindus (10.7 per cent) and others (0.7 per cent). Although the country is traditionally identified as moderate Muslim one, the recent events against religious minorities raised questions about this identity. Increasing political attacks, grabbing properties, recent target killing are some of the concerns that has been deteriorating the country s positive image in communal tolerance. Attacks on minority communities, especially on Hindus, intensify during elections in Khulna, Jessore and Satkhira. Recently, Buddha temples have been ransacked and villages destroyed, and few monks have been killed. In the last two years, Hindu women are reported to have been raped and injured. 19 They are Urdu-speaking Muslim minority originally and mostly from the Indian state of Bihar. During the partition of British India in 1947, some of them chose to move to East Pakistan and others to West Pakistan. However, during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, the Biharis sided with West Pakistan which made them unwanted after independence and confined to the Geneva camps. See, Iftekharul Bashar (2006), Unresolved Statelessness: The Case of Biharis in Bangladesh, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 10, 2 Nos. 1 & 2, June & December. 23

24 The violent attacks caused 452 houses, 246 business establishments and 26 temples vandalized, looted or set on fire in at least 76 places in 23 districts. A total of 485 houses, 578 business establishments and 152 temples were vandalized, looted and set on fire in sectarian attacks in 32 districts in 44 days between 23 November 2013 and 8 January In the recent spate of violence, minorities of Khulna, Jessore, Satkhira came under severe attack. Recent attacks on religious minorities including priests, marked as target killing, has even aggravated the situation. Table 9: Repression against Religious Minority Killed Injured Assaulted Arrested Abducted Looted Grabbing: Land House Attack: Property Temple Idol Damaged Raped Others Total Source: Due to poverty and marginalization, ethnic minorities as a whole are exposed to violence and rampant violation of their human rights. For the last couple of years, they have been victims of killing, abduction, property damage, land grabbing, rape, etc. This aggravates the sense of deprivation, grievance and finally leads to conflict. Fabricated charges and arrests: In 2015, fabricated charges were brought against as many as 191 persons, ethnic minority people 74 of whom were arrested who include women and schoolgirls. The recurrence of arbitrary arrests and detentions of ethnic minority peoples intensified alarmingly in Extra-judicial killing: 13 ethnic minority people (including three indigenous women and girls) were extra-judicially killed in both the CHT and the plains. Torture and physical assault: At least 134 ethnic minority people, 101 from the CHT and 33 from the plains, were tortured and physically assaulted. While bulk of the physical assaults were carried out by influential Bengali non-state actors, in many instances, the state actors such as members of security forces and law enforcement agencies are alleged to play either supportive or passive roles with regard to these crimes. Property damage and loot: Houses and properties were destroyed and looted by miscreants of Bengali origin. In 2015, at least 84 houses belonging to ethnic minorities in the plains were vandalized and looted and 35 houses in the plains and the CHT were set on fire and burnt to ashes by the land grabbers (Kapaeeng Foundation, 2016). Table 10: Repression against Ethnic Minority Killed

25 Injured Assaulted Arrested Abducted Looted Property Damaged Land Grabbed Raped Others Total Source: Poverty, deprivation and violence in CHT The three districts of CHT, home to 11 indigenous small ethnic groups, has been one of the most underdeveloped, deprived, and backward areas of Bangladesh. The Constitution of Bangladesh has recognized small ethnic communities as special groups of population. The crux of the complex roots of multiple forms of deprivation and conflict can be traced in the life standards in CHT where the redistribution of wealth is in the reverse direction, i.e., from the poorest to the richest. Location of multitude of life-sustaining vegetation, hills have been transformed into dominant privately-owned and commercially profitable teak trees or tobacco over the years. Largescale sales of hills and the flat stretches in between started after independence as a political process of attaining balance between Bengalis and small ethnic communities. This, along with the political alienation with ethnical minorities, led to two decades long bloodshed in the CHT, that ended with the of However, the privatization and commercialization of the hill lands continued resulting in the further marginalization and sense of acute deprivation among the small ethnic communities. These profiteers continued to grow teak and tobacco aggressively for rapid economic returns without considering the social or environmental impacts. It gradually replaced the traditional 50- vegetation jhum cultivation and did not allow for the biodiversity of multi-layered foliage of a natural forest. Other big agro-businesses also developed parts of CHT as immensely profitable orchards of fruits, rubber firms and new tobacco field. Consequently, small ethnic communities found fewer and fewer hills for traditional jhum cultivation on and began replanting seeds on hills that had only regenerated for a year or two, in which the yield was naturally lower and the soil depleted. The hill people began to suffer from under-nutrition as the variety and quantity of their food began to dwindle. As a result, they began to retreat to more remote areas for survival. Figure 12: Usage of Available Cultivable Lands in CHT 25

26 35% 27% 18% 20% Jhum Plough Cultivation Homestead Plantation Traditionally, the small ethnic communities practice jhum cultivation, a local form of shifting or rotational slash and burn cultivation. Out of an estimated 364,000 acres of available cultivable land, 27 percent is used for jhum, 20 percent is under plough cultivation, 18 percent is set aside for homesteads and 35 percent is used for plantation or left to fallow. Issues related to land ownership are complex. Among the indigenous population most land falls under the category of traditionalcustomary property (55 percent). Only 21 percent of small ethnic people have land property categorized as registered ownership. The standard of life of the hill population is still a matter of grave concern despite notable positive initiatives by the government and donor agencies after the Peace Accord. This region continues to lag behind in terms of basic human needs, health and nutrition, social security, access to improved water and sanitation, physical infrastructure, employment, and economic and social empowerment as compared to other regions of the country. It is located at the bottom in terms of the latest composite deprivation index. Economic and social indicators portray a disgrace for majority of upazilas (sub-districts) in the region. The incidence of absolute and extreme poverty among ethnic minorities is 89 and 78 percent, respectively among ethnic minorities. Households below the lower poverty line range between 100 per cent for Lushai and 71 percent for Chakma, while the corresponding figures for upper poverty line range between 100 percent for Lushai and 84 percent for Chakma (GED, 2015c). After the signing of the Peace Accord in 1997, officially the region is no longer designated as a conflict zone, but it is still regarded as an area of potential conflict for which the government is spending a considerable amount of money and deploying security forces. Figure 13: Nexus between Poverty and Deprivation at CHT Upazilas 26

27 Deprivation Index Source: Kabir et al. (2015). y = x r² = Moderate Poverty HCI (%) The composite deprivation index (CDI) indicates that the CHT districts are among the lowest in the CDI. The CDI rank of CHT districts are Khagrachhari 45th, Rangamati 50th, and Bandarban 63rd (jointly the lowest with depression-prone Sunamganj district) among 64 districts. In terms of poverty HCI, the rank of CHT districts is also at the bottom. Many CHT upazilas are performing worst in terms of social deprivation. Many of them are also included in the list of the most deprived 50 upazilas of the country (circled in Map 3). The final draft of National Social Security Strategy of Bangladesh (2015) reveals that Food Poverty is widespread in CHT. Most people of ethnic communities in CHT are not secured in relation to availability of food during most time in a year; Ashar (June-July) and Sravan (July- Aug) being the worse months. The prevalence of absolute poor and hardcore poor among people of ethnic communities are 65 and 44 per cent, respectively. Households living below lower and upper poverty lines are 78 and 89 per cent, respectively among ethnic communities. Also, there is a strong nexus between poverty and socio-economic deprivation in the area. The social protection programs pay to CHT populations an average benefit of Tk.1,644 per households. Along with access to other programs, there are a few programs that are explicitly targeted towards the ethnic minority of the country. The three major programs are: (i) Allowance covering different beneficiaries in the CHTs, (ii) Food Assistance in the CHT area, and (iii) rehabilitation of non-bengali speaking populations (GED, 2015c). 27

28 Map 4: Pockets of social deprivation (by composite deprivation index) by upazila (left) and the most deprived 50 upazilas (right), 2011 Source: BBS, BIDS and UNICEF (2014), Child Equity Atlas. 28

29 Many of the hill people do receive government support in the form of Vulnerable Groups Feeding (VGF) however, much of the rice meant for VGF is often sold off at subsidized rates at markets as the government finds it challenging to deliver the rice to more remote areas in the CHT. Widows allowance is given to women who lose their husbands, but divorced women or abandoned women receive no support though most of them must support their family alone, and are in effect female headed households for their entire lives, though this is a problem across the nation, not in the hills alone. Finally, there are no economic opportunities for the people in the hills. There are hardly any factories, no manufacturing, only a few service related ventures and almost no jobs. Adolescent girls are expected to look after younger children in the household, till they get married, and adolescent boys are expected to work as day laborers. So the intergenerational transfer of poverty continues. While general social safety net programs (SSNPs) such as different allowances, food transfer, conditional grant and loan are applicable for CHT areas, the special needs of this region are yet to be conceived and reflected properly in the SSNP budget. Less than one percent has been allocated in the current fiscal year s budget in only two projects, most of which belong to the project titled Food Assistance in Chittagong Hill Tracts Area. On the other hand, a part of Integrated Community Development Project focuses on child protection. Thus, it reveals that there is a general paucity of social protection programs. The other major problems among the ethnic minorities can be summarized below: The government is supposed to preserve and protect all the rights and privileges they are entitled to enjoy as a citizen of the country. However, the ethnic minorities strongly perceive that their fundamental rights and basic necessities are strongly being curtailed, like education, health services, food security, freedom of speech, economic opportunities, etc. As citizens of the country they cannot speak freely with Bengalis in the CHT areas. A Treaty Implementation Committee has been formed for full implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Treaty. It is a grave concern and matter of great discontent among the ethnic minorities. No progress is being observed for the last three years. No timeline has been set for implementation. A Land Commission has been working to resolve the land related disputes of the hill districts. Land right is a very critical issue in their economic and civil right. No progress is being observed for the last three years. No timeline has been set for implementation. Hospitals and schools are few and far between and difficult for many hill people to reach. Their homes are remote and the roads are inadequate. Even if they reach a hospital, most of them are meagerly staffed. Many hospitals here have no physicians on a permanent basis, only ones that visit weekly. These physicians often speak only Bengali, making it even more difficult for small ethnic people in CHT to access health services. Coverage of mobile health clinic is quite small compared to the needs. Out of 25 upazilas 3 are district Sadar and growth centres and upazila headquarters. The rest are mainly hard to reach areas. Mobile clinics have extreme shortage compared to the need. 29

30 Deprivation of access to quality education is a major factor contributing to social marginalization, poverty and dispossession of small ethnic groups. Progress is being made in pre-primary education. However, a large section of children is missing the schools. The situation in using improved drinking water and sanitation is still grave. Food Poverty is widespread in CHT. Most small ethnic peoples in CHT are not secured in relation to availability of food during most of the year; Ashar (June July) and Sravan (July Aug) are the worst months. However, for the Bengalis, the food security status is better as compared to the small ethnic peoples. The food support program and some other programs have been able to reduce the duration of starvation (Monga) by about half from three months. However, there is still an extremely lean period of one and a half month that leads to acute starvation and prevalence of soft famine among poor hilly peoples. It again drives them depending on and persistence of Jhum cultivation (Kabir et al., 2015). Women and girl children are affected disproportionately during starvation period. They starve more during this period since intra-household distribution of food is overwhelmingly tilted towards their male counterparts. Extreme food shortage leads to three-months starvation at Thanchi upazila in Bandarban Hill District The people living at Thanchi upazila in Bandarban Hill District, one of the remotest parts of the country, began experiencing acute food shortage since March 2016 due to crops failure. Many of them could not cultivate Jhum crops due to excess rain, and some who had did not have good yields. People at Romacri and Tindu unions have been foraging for food and living on wild vegetables and fruits. Therefore, they have been starving of several thousand locals primarily because of inadequate relief from local administration. Even when relief foods are carried by helicopters at starvation areas, there was allegation of corruption and the foods are seen to be sold in the local markets. In fact, this type of situation breaks out every year due to lack of local buffer stock and granary to preserve food. 20 Some people are also reported to be crossing the border to escape the endured starvation. 21 Photo 2: People at Thanchi upazila eating wild potato due to extreme food shortage since March Thousands still starving in Thanchi, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 15 June Starving Villagers Forced to Flee Bangladesh, The Citizen, 9 June 2016; 30

31 Photo: Dhaka Tribune Currently a large portion of the small ethnic communities are extremely poor, displaced from their traditionally inherited lands. The loss of land rights of ethnic minorities is integrally related to the power relations and political contentions characterizing the CHT incorporating ethnic conflicts. The ethnic monitories, however, have not been compensated properly in exchange of land grabbing by either private or public sector. A number of parties are involved in land grabbing as identified by CHT Commission report 2011, ranging from Department of Forests, civil administration, security forces, business corporations, commercial NGOs, plantation leaseholders, political leaders, land dealers to Bengali residents (also known as settlers ). The CHT ethnic minorities are also exposed to manifold threats from different groups, commercial agencies and power holders occupying their lands as a natural outcome of intensifying capitalism, aggressive privatization and market forces. 3.3 Deprivation and violence against Dalits Caste-based discrimination is prevalent among Hindu and Muslim populations in Bangladesh. Dalits populations, estimated to be 6.5 million, are caught in a vicious circle of poverty with extremely limited access to health services, education and jobs. Due to extreme poverty and marginalization, they are confined to colonies where the housing and sanitation are very poor. They work in some of the lowest paid and humble service sector, such as street sweeping, cleaning, manual scavenging and burying the dead. A large number of child workers in Bangladesh are Dalits. They are excluded largely from decent jobs, let alone holding official positions by virtue of caste identity and low access to education and opportunities. They are hardly covered with mainstream social protection initiatives of the government. Because they are treated as the lowest caste populations doing the most disgraceful jobs, Dalits are exposed to usual discriminations. They have been ignored in the mainstream development and their fundamental human rights as well as constitutional rights as citizens of the country are often violated. Only recently the government has taken a development project for betterment of the lives of Dalits including Harijans. 31

32 In the Dalit community, women suffer from multiple forms of discrimination and violation of human rights. They are still mostly disempowered and yet to play any active role in the economy, polity and society at large. Women and girls from Dalit communities are victims of prostitution, trafficking and bonded labor. 22 Dalits are deprived of property and major assets, and excluded from political participation, community development and employment, and experience violent attacks during elections. Tolerated and patronized as long as they remain in their traditional social roles, they are openly threatened and insulted, and beaten while attempting to bring changes among them. Dalit girls are at the crossroads of caste- and gender-based discrimination for long. 23 Dalits usually do not get equal treatment and legal protection in the case of criminal offense against them. Being the most deprived and backward, they are forced to child-marriage, dowry, severe and become victims of forms of human rights violations, including abduction, rape, torture, destruction of houses, land grabbing, eviction from land, threats and intimidation Crisis Emanating from Neo-Liberal Reforms Right after independence in 1971, Bangladesh pursued an inward-looking development strategy with nationalization and government intervention in economic spheres. With the vision of a socialist type of agriculture, cooperative farming was encouraged while the procurement and distribution of seed, fertilizers, pesticides and all sorts of agricultural equipment was controlled by the Government. However, liberalization and privatization started since the second half of 1970s, and it was intensified in the 1990s with the accession of Bangladesh to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Currently the economy is undergoing all-out liberalization, and becoming one of the most rapidly liberalized among the least developed countries (LDCs) in the world. However, rapid integration with the regional and global economies is creating immense pressure on the lives of the poor and marginalized as the only beneficiaries are some booming multinational giants; the common people s benefit from the process of liberalization is exposed to a big question mark. Liberalization tend to translate into lower commodity/produce prices for labor-intensive smallholder farmers resulting in lower welfare gains for smallholder farmer households. It reduces the wages of unskilled workers, and widens the income gap between the rich and poor, and leads to economic polarization in the society. The readymade garments (RMG) industry is the best case of global integration through liberalization in which the crises over wage, compliance and right to trade union are quite frequent in recent times. Like many other peripheral countries, Bangladesh was targeted by the Structural Adjustment Programs, which later formed the foundation of the Washington Consensus. So-called fiscal discipline, reordering of public expenditure priorities, tax reform, liberalizing interest rates, competitive exchange rates, freeing up trade and foreign direct investment, privatization, and deregulation have always been the key principles of the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) 22 The Human Rights Situation of Dalits in Bangladesh, Joint NGO Submission related to Bangladesh for the 16th Universal Periodic Review, prepared by BDERM, BDEWF, Nagorik Uddyog and IDSN, Discrimination against Dalits in Bangladesh, IDSN Briefing Note Bangladesh Khan Ferdousour Rahman, The Dalits in Bangladesh, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 19 January

33 and the Washington Consensus 25. In simple terms, the aim is to bring everything under the sun within the reach of private business, turn every activity into something for profit, and open every public space and property for corporate interests. 4.1 Neoliberalism of market and financial sector The biggest source of foreign exchange has been remittances; existing side by side with a huge outflow of resources through the transfer pricing and profit outflow by foreign companies, and transfer of accumulated wealth by local business groups, legally and illegally. The number of workers abroad is now more than the number of workers working in the country s factories, who took this risky option because of job scarcity. One unpublished study by the Ministry of Finance estimated the size of the underground economy is a minimum of 40 to 50 percent, and a maximum of 83 percent, of Bangladesh s GDP 26. This particular economy encompasses bribery, crime, the arms trade, the employment of professional criminals, corruption, resource grabbing, trafficking of women, illegal commissions from questionable deals, and leakages from different governments projects, especially foreign aided ones. Energy resources and power have been systematically privatized 27. Power became a costly commodity and costs for the productive sector have increased, while energy security for the majority was threatened. All of this hurt the peasants; many had to join the labor market at home and abroad. Big public enterprises were dismantled; large mills were replaced by export processing zones, shopping malls, and real estate. Export-oriented garment factories became the mainstay of manufacturing. Incidents like the Rana Plaza collapse in April 2013 showed the extent of cruelty and greed in these death traps. Rural branches of state-owned banks have closed down, squeezing the access to cheaper finance for rural people, and forcing them to go to microcredit, which has higher interest rates. The largest bank defaulter is the largest business group in the country; the bank s owner, who has been accused of draining billions of Taka abroad by manipulating market share is still the economic adviser to the prime minister of the country 28. The rise of the superrich and mafia lords and their domination over policy makers makes it easy for global institutions to promote their agenda; for example, privatization gives huge opportunities to this class to grab common property. Ironically, neoliberal reforms were initiated in Bangladesh, just as elsewhere, in the name of curbing corruption, improving efficiency and transparency, increasing decent employment, and 25 William Easterly, What Did Structural Adjustment Adjust? The Association of Policies and Growth with Repeated IMF and World Bank Adjustment Loans, Journal of Development Economics 76 (2005): The Finance Minister stated this in the post budget press conference on June 8, 2012, FE Report, It s a People s Budget, Financial Express 20, no. 260, June 9, 2012, 27 Anu Muhammad, Natural Resources and Energy Security, Challenging the Resource-Curse Model in Bangladesh, Economic & Political Weekly, January 25,

34 reducing poverty. But these reforms, instead, increased the scope and legality of corruption, criminality, resource grabbing, commissions from bad deals, and gangsterism Neoliberalism of microfinance and NGOs The rural economy of Bangladesh is now much more marketized, and market relations have become dominant. The spread of microcredit has also played a role in increasing the market orientation of the rural economy. Small trade and small moneylenders grew because of both remittances and microcredit. The much-applauded rise in women s mobility came more from garment production than microcredit. The development of infrastructure like roads and electrification has opened up opportunities for different occupations, businesses, and short-term migration. Different studies, taking into consideration all of these factors, conclude that the conditions of the rural poor do not differ much between borrowers of microcredit and nonborrowers 30. Many studies also reveal that microfinance/credit could not improve the conditions of the poor who do not have other sources of income. On the contrary, a recent report shows how vulnerability increases after getting trapped into a never-ending cycle of indebtedness. In an attempt to escape this cycle, borrowers are even forced to sell their organs, facing preventable suffering if not premature death 31. The high growth rate of rural-urban migration and constant flow of women and men to fill the streets and slums of Dhaka in search of work and their destiny in death-trap factories and uncertain informal jobs, as well as foreign lands, show the failure of the much-acclaimed NGO/microfinance model. In essence, the model of the NGOs and the microfinance-based approach goes well with the neoliberal ideology and the dominant development paradigm that produces and reproduces poverty for many and affluence for the few, destroying nature and people s lives, in order to maximize corporate profit. 4.3 Neoliberal reform in health sector The health reform has produced positive impact in the area of maternal and child health, health knowledge, access and responsiveness. In other words, it has brought improvements only in the area of health of the poor which are allowed by the dominant health professional s perspectives. As a result, the whole health agenda has been reduced to reproductive health. No impact has been felt on the collective dimension of human agency. Health rights, consumer rights, participation and accountability have not been addressed through the reform program. The service users have been considered as passive receivers of advice and drugs; their human agency is not taken into account. 29 Muhammad, A. (2015). Bangladesh-A Model of Neoliberalism: The Case of Microfinance and NGOs. Monthly Review, 66(10), Anu Muhammad, Grameen and Microcredit: A Tale of Corporate Success, Economic and Political Weekly, August 29, 2009, The Bangladesh Poor Selling Organs to Pay Debts, BBC News, October 27, 2013, 34

35 No major difference is found between NGOs and local government in most of the aspects with respect to their impact which implies there is no qualitative difference between NGO and local government approach to the health of the poor as both show their institutional loyalty to the hegemonic perception of health. Evidence shows that because of the particular nature of the state and weak state-society relations through political parties, the dominant coalition of doctors, donors, bureaucrats and NGOs are influencing the policy process in accordance with their own interests (?). Evidence also shows that policy decisions by that hegemonic coalition only allow limited, reduced services to the poor without allowing them to take part in decision making processes so that the existing uneven power relations remain unchanged. As a result, the poor gained some health benefits but no impact on the social, political determinants of health has been made. The neoliberal health reform reduces power of conventional political institutions such as political parties, local government bodies, and local political leaders and gives more power to the non-state and non-political actors. As a result, the poor will suffer more because the traditional political leaders, despite being inefficient, were closer to the people; on the other hand; on the other new non-state actors are efficient but do not have the capacity to bridge the gap between the people and service providers Neoliberal reform in higher education sector The neoliberal transformation of higher education started in the 1990s. The democratic government enacted the Private University Act 1992 (Ministry of Education, 1992). In promoting a neoliberal agenda in the higher education sector, the World Bank is providing substantial economic support to Bangladesh. In 2006, the University Grants Commission (UGC), with the technical and financial support of the World Bank, formulated a Strategic Plan for Higher Education (SPHE), a 20-year strategic plan for the higher education sector (University Grants Commission, 2006). The SPHE is strongly connected with market-driven economic forces (Kabir, 2010). In order to promote academic innovation, the government launched a five-year Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) in 2009, financed by the World Bank. The neoliberal transformation of policies brings major changes in higher education sector in which new models of public universities are established. As a result of neoliberalism, a rapid growth of private universities promotes the marketization of higher education in Bangladesh. The government has gradually reduced the fund for public universities. The public universities have adopted many strategies, for example introducing fee-earning evening courses, to mitigate their financial burden. This is how the public universities are transforming into the private university through the structural change. 33 In sum, out-of-pocket expenditure in healthcare and education due to privatization has become enormous. It has been creating detrimental effects on the marginalized by depleting their real income. Thus, both income and human poverty are on the rise due to privatization of education and healthcare service. It is taking out real welfare of the society even though the effect on national 32 Islam, K. M. (2007). The Impact of Health Sector Reform on State and Society in Bangladesh, Kabir, A. H. (2013). Neoliberalism, policy reforms and higher education in Bangladesh. Policy Futures in Education, 11(2),

36 income would increase. Therefore, a contradiction is being created between national income and social optimization due to wholesale neo-liberal reforms in education and health sector over the last two decades or so. 5. Land Grabbing, Acquisition and Eviction 5.1 Land grabbing and eviction of the minorities Widespread among the poor, deprived, and religious and ethnic minorities, land-grabbing is a significant concern throughout Bangladesh. It is often reported that local power elites, musclemen, police and political leaders including some members of the national parliament and administration are occasionally involved in land-grabbing and/or shielding politically-influential individuals from prosecution. It is, however, most frequent near roads or in industrial zones where land is at a premium. Therefore, it is difficult to determine if minorities are targeted due to their religious faith, their vulnerable status as minorities, or the value of the property. The poor and marginalized communities are exposed to eviction the most from land in such a process, and are forced to inand out-migration. Land predation by bureaucratic elites, political party members, judiciary and law enforcement agents and agencies as well as the nouveau-riche business community that emerged in the postindependence period and expanded dramatically with neoliberal reforms and the rise of garment production and export production. The neo-liberal practices of privatization, de-nationalization, the removal of subsidies for the agricultural sector, and the shift from food self-sufficiency to comparative advantage provided grounds for aggressive industrialization, export-oriented production and massive urbanization that continued to cause land grabbing and eviction of the poor. Increasingly the powerholders and capitalists are manipulating laws, courts, and state machineries for expropriation of urban and rural lands. The poor, powerless, and religious and ethnic minorities remain the biggest hit of aggressive land grabbing and eviction thereafter. Like Hindus, many poor Muslims get robbed of their property by influential people across the country. Researchers of the study, which is being conducted by the Diversity and Inclusion Studies Unit (DISU) of BRAC University, interviewed 300 people from as many families at Derai upazila in Sunamganj and Baniachong of Habiganj in the north-east Bangladesh. Of the 300 families, 176 lost part or all of their properties to land grabbers. All of the affected families, who were poor, owned 0-10 decimals of land, who are basically landless households. 34 Demand for independent commission to end land disputes of minority communities On 16 November 2015, thousands of indigenous people took part in a two-day march in northern Bangladesh to press the government to establish an independent commission to end the problem of land disputes, which often impact minority communities. The 60-kilometer march from Chapai Nawabganj to Rajshahi city brought together about 3,000 people from dozens of small ethnic groups. The protesters submitted a nine-point memorandum to the Rajshahi divisional commissioner calling for the immediate establishment of an independent land commission to end what they claimed were land-related abuses committed against small

37 ethnic people in the northern part of the country. About 2 million ethnic minority people live in northern Bangladesh, and many face abuses including forced eviction, violence, rape and murder for land. Thousands have fled their homes and migrated to other countries in fear of their lives. Various governments have failed to keep pledges to end land-related violence by setting up a special land commission. However, all the governments have neglected these peoples. In Bengali Muslim-majority Bangladesh, about 3 million of the country s 160 million population belong to 45 small ethnic groups. The majority of them are Buddhists and animists, while about half the country s 500,000 Christians also come from indigenous communities. These communities have long complained of the systematic grabbing of their land by Muslims, who they say often use fake documents or resort to acts of violence to get what they want. Over the past four decades, more than 140 indigenous people have been killed, many women raped and some 10,000 forced to migrate abroad because of land disputes. Table 11: Land-related Incidents and Casualties of Ethnic Minorities in 2015 Form of Atrocity CHT Plains Total No. of houses burnt to ashes No. of houses looted and ransacked No. of persons assaulted & injured No. of persons killed 1 1 No. of rape attempts/molestation against women 4 4 No. of evicted families No. of families threatened to eviction Amount of land grabbed (in acres) 5, ,216 Amount of land under grabbing/ acquisition (in acres) Amount of land under grabbing/ acquisition (in acres) , ,650 No of persons against whom false case filed No. of village came under communal attack 1 1 Arrest Source: Kapaeeng Foundation (2016), Human Rights Report 2015 on Indigenous Peoples in Bangladesh. As in previous years, land related human rights violations against small ethnic peoples continued in A total 26 houses of indigenous peoples in the plain land were burnt to ashes, while 65 houses were reported to have been looted and ransacked by land grabbers. 44 ethnic minority people, 5 from the CHT and 39 from the plain land were physically assaulted and wounded by land grabbers in land related hostilities. In 2015, at least 45 ethnic minority families were ousted from their ancestral lands, while 1400 families including 657 from the CHT were threatened with eviction from their lands. Land related hostilities resulted in an assault on, at least, an ethnic minority village by land grabbers in the plain land, while a total 5,216 acres of land including acres in the plains were grabbed by both the state and non-state actors. Such a big mass of land, essentially, comprising Jhum and mouza land in the CHT was occupied by outsider lease holders which threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of Jhum cultivators particularly in Bandarban district. Figure 14: Land-related Atrocity on Ethnic Minorities, 2014 and

38 Source: Kapaeeng Foundation (2016), Human Rights Report 2015 on Indigenous Peoples in Bangladesh. Also, approximately acres of land including 22.5 acres in the CHT were targeted for illegal encroachment or acquisition. Bringing false charges against ethnic minority peoples by the land grabbers is a common key tactic to preempt resistance by ethnic minority peoples in defending their lands in the country. Land grabbers in 2015, filed false cases against, at least, 28 ethnic minority people including 11 from the plains to break down whatever resistance the ethnic minority people could offer. 5.2 Land acquisition for investment and conflict Large-scale land acquisition for investment in industry or power plant is now rampant. According to the Seventh Five-Year Plan of the Government of Bangladesh, the country would achieve 8 percent economic growth and become a developing country, which requires massive industrialization and power production of 23,000 megawatts. Therefore, the government has constituted Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA). One of the most recent policy initiatives for industrialization has led to the threat of eviction and conflict. The government has decided to establish Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in 22 locations of the country to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). This has raised concerns among the poor and most deprived populations across the country because most of the SEZ locations are agricultural lands. On the other hand, the proposed coal-fired power plants have created considerable policy debates and controversies including environmental disasters large-scale eviction of the poor through land acquisitions. According to Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), the government has violated some rules in acquiring land for two coal-fired power plants in Rampal and in Matarbari, and those evicted from their land are still struggling to get compensation. The victims had to bribe officials three to 10 percent of their recompense in advance to receive the money. Once in operation, each of the two projects would produce 1320MW electricity. The Rampal plant is expected to start operation in June 2019 and the Matarbari plant in June The government was supposed to follow the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Guideline for Industries 1997 while conducting the EIA for the two projects. 38

39 For the Rampal project, the EIA was conducted by a government agency which created controversies but the assessment for the Matarbari project, funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was conducted by a Japanese firm in violation of rules. Besides, in both cases, the government did not consider locals' views regarding the power plants. Locals were also threatened and asked not to express any views that go against the plants even though their lands would be acquired in a large scale. In the Rampal project, the land was developed even before the EIA report was prepared while the government evacuated people from the Matarbari project areas even before disposal of the cases in court. In Matarbari, a vested quarter has withdrawn Tk 80 million against an abandoned salt factory. Most victims of Rampal power plant are yet to get compensation. So far, merely 492 of the 3,681 victims of acquisition received the compensation money. In addition, the people of Bashkhali in Chittagong had a heavy clash with the law enforcing agencies in April 2016 on constructing a private coal-fired power that led to the death of four poor local people and injury to many ordinary citizens. The power plan raised mass discontent and upsurge due to their caveat of mass eviction and adverse impact on the local environment. Photo 3: Heavy mass protest, especially by the local poor, at Bashkhali against constructing a private coalfired power plant in April 2016 (left) leading to police-villagers clash that killed five (right) On the other hand, one of the SEZs that has been proposed to be established in Chandpur area of Chunarughat upazila in Habiganj district, has threatened the livelihood of nearly 16,000 tea garden workers belonging to different indigenous and marginalised peoples who are dependent on that land. BEZA has decided to establish an economic zone on around 512 acres of land in Chunarughat, which was earlier leased out to Chandpur Tea Estate operated by Duncan Brothers. Recently the lease has been cancelled for the establishment of SEZ. Therefore, thousands of tea workers have been facing fear of eviction from the land. It is learned that 951 acres of land out of 3,951 acres are agricultural land which was used for cultivation of rice by tea workers for the last 150 years. This tract of land has been made cultivable by clearing jungles by the ancestors of the tea garden workers which now belongs to BEZA. This land is the source of livelihoods of 1,6000 tea garden workers of different indigenous and dalit peoples of Chandpur Tea Garden, Begum Khan Tea Garden, Jual Bhanga Tea Garden and Ram Ganga Tea Garden. These poor people would be in extremely awkward situation if the government 39

40 finally acquires this land where they have been cultivating rice. Most tea workers are very poor and their daily wage is as low as Tk. 69 (US$0.87), which is one of the lowest wage-rates in the country. Therefore, they need to cultivate rice in this traditionally inherited land. The government is also not considering to provide compensation for the workers because they do not have legal right over the land. Therefore, tea workers are intensely protesting against the government s decision of acquiring the land claiming that their livelihood would be at stake once SEZ is established. Photo 4: Extremely poor small ethnic women are protesting heavily against establishing SEZ at Chunarughat, Sylhet that would cause eviction from their farm land 6. Environmental Dimensions of Poverty, Deprivation and Conflict 6.1 Poverty and vulnerability in char and haor areas An overwhelming majority of the people in ecologically vulnerable and disaster-prone chars (riverine and coastal islands) and haors (depression) are extremely poor. More than 77 percent of the island char dwellers are extremely poor and another 9 percent are moderate poor, making the total percentage of poor above 86. These rates are extremely high compared to the national rates. It is evident from the comparative rates that the incidence of poverty is more than double in island chars that of extreme poverty is more than triple. Incidence of landlessness is very high in island chars. More than a quarter of the island char dwellers has no land and a vast majority (almost two thirds) of these people has no cultivable land at all. More than three-quarters of the island char dwellers are functionally landless (having no or less than 50 decimal of land). Violent conflict over land at char areas is one of the most traditional conflicts in rural Bangladesh. On the other hand, haor areas remain inundated from six to eight months when most of the dwellers remain under extreme conditions of human life. 40

41 Map 5: Haor areas (left), and poverty and deprivations (righ) Source: JICA (2014), Preparatory Survey on Upper Meghna River Basin Watershed Management Improvement Project; and Sen and Ali (2015). 41

42 The isolated char areas are highly vulnerable to sudden floods and land erosion, which makes living hazardous and insecure. Many char dwellers struggle to produce or buy enough food to eat, thus resulting in higher incidence of under-nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies compared to other parts of the country. The haor basin in north-eastern Bangladesh is one of the poorest regions of the country, which suffers from extensive annual flooding and devastating flash-floods. It also limits livelihood options for the poor, including growth of agricultural production and enterprises. Haor dwellers are extremely vulnerable and their suffering is heightened by a lack of proper communication and transportation systems, hindering economic growth, access to markets (i.e., off-farm job opportunities), and basic social services (i.e., education and health). Table 12: Locations of haors in Bangladesh District Upazila Sunamganj Sunamganj Sadar, Jagannathpur, Dharmapasha, Jamalganj, Chhatak, Derai, Salla, Tahirpur, Bishambarpur Netrokona Atpara, Barhatta, khaliajuri, Mohongonj, Madan, Kandua Sylhet Jaintiapur, Beanibazar, Fenchuganj, Balagonj, Biswanath Habiganj Ajmerigonj, Hobiganj Sadar, Bahubal Maulavi Bazar Maulavi Bazar Sadar, Kulaura, Rajnagar, Sreemangal Kishoreganj Mithamain, Karimgonj, Austragram, Itna, Nikli, Bazitpur Kuliarchar, Tarail, Bhairab, Katiadi Brahmanbaria Brahmanbaria Sadar, Nasirnagar Generally, the level of health services in haor areas is lower than that of other regions. An overwhelming majority in haor areas depends on traditional healers. There is a shortage of modern medical facilities. Government hospitals are inadequate and are in poor conditions. In the health policy of the government, haor and char do not get any special policy considerations. Women are less mobile in chars and haors, and they tend to suffer mostly from lack of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care service, especially during adolescence and early motherhood age. Childbearing due to child and early marriage significantly curtails their potential and opportunities. Transport and communication is very fragile in char/haor areas. Waterway is the main route of communication of the people in haor areas. Boat and trawler are the main modes of transportation. Due to the unavailability of the boats and trawlers, people with urgent health needs cannot be carried to the hospitals/health complexes at the urban centers. These poor modes of transport and communication are the cause of loss of many lives in haor areas. Due to the lack of transportation, death of children and pregnant women is higher as they cannot be readily carried to health centers which are located distantly. In the remote areas, tube wells are the sources of safe drinking water. Unfortunately, there are not enough government sponsored tube wells and the ones that exist are poorly maintained and often out of order. As a result, majority of people have inadequate access to potable water. In addition, most of the tube wells go under water during rainy season this also triggers extreme scarcity of safe drinking water. People are vulnerable to a whole range of water-borne diseases due to their patterns of the use of water, especially as they have limited knowledge about the health risks associated with the use of 42

43 unsafe and unclean water. Haor people are exposed to an acute shortage of safe drinking water throughout the year. Therefore, diarrhea and dysentery is quite frequent in these areas. Most of the households do not have the sanitary latrines, which pose serious threat to public health. The government intervention is scanty in this regard. Table 13: Problems of Education and Health in Haor Area Education Health 1. Numerically fewer educational 1. Generally, government health care facilities at the union level institutions in the Haor area as compared to other regions. 2. Number of girls school is lower than the boys or general school within the haor regions. Girl s enrolment rate is low and drop-out rate is high. do not function. There is acute shortage of physicians, nurses, medical officers, medical equipment and other medical facilities. 2. Common health problems among the haor: high maternal and child mortality; malnutrition and related diseases particularly among children and pregnant women; pelvic infections, lack of access to contraceptives; weight loss and chronic 3. Lack of transportation and respiratory infections. communication, which prohibits girl education significantly. 4. Schools in haor areas used as shelters during natural disasters. This disrupts the school academic calendar. 5. No primary or high schools in many villages. Students have to commute miles to attend the schools. Distance also discourages girl students to attend schools. 6. Lack of qualified teachers, school supplies, lack of female teachers, 3. Women especially the poorer ones do not get pre and postnatal services from the health center. 4. Poor communication and transport facilities especially in the dry seasons make it difficult to carry patients to district health complexes for critical clinical treatment. There is also lack of medicines in the hospitals. 5. Distant location of the hospitals that increase the transport cost of health service seekers from remote areas. With the same travel cost, they rather prefer to go to nearby divisional cities where they can also explore other options of private health service facilities. There is lack of good quality laboratories at the upazila level. 6. Lack of trained midwives and family planning workers. etc. are main obstacles for ensuring quality education. Haor region is highly flood prone area and thus the crop production is impeded mostly every year. The farmers in the haor areas have to rely on one single crop Boro in flood prone regions. If the Boro crop fails, the households become extremely food insecure. Therefore, food security atlas of World Food Program (WFP) Bangladesh categorize haor region as the highly food insecure areas of the country. The districts of Sunamganj, Netrakona, Kishoreganj and Habiganj are regarded as hot-spots of poverty. Thus, the people of haor are forced to adopt extreme coping mechanisms to counter food insecurity whereas reducing the quality and quantity of food intake has detrimental impact on the young children especially in terms of nutritional deficiencies. Photo 5: Most of the char dwellers are extremely poor, who hardly have access to basic services like education, health, sanitation and social protection 43

44 Food insecurity in the chars shows that these areas in northern part belong to the poorest settlement among whole Bangladesh. Livelihood of chars is determined by the mood of the rivers. Frequent floods and river erosion result in a loss of assets for the population, impede agricultural activities, hamper livestock, scarcity of water and shortage of fodder. Land of chars are used for purposes of settlement as well cultivation. Control over and access to the natural assets of the chars, and especially land, is critical to the livelihoods of char people. This access is a function of government laws, policies and rules and of local practice, social norms and social power. Within the char lands the dominant arrangement is private ownership of land. Land tenure in unprotected mainland that has a long unbroken history of ownership and use is not different from other mainland areas, except to the extent that proximity to an eroding bank-line makes it difficult to sell land. Photo 6: Poor haor dwellers often struggle with flash floods, which take away their crops The levels of formal education are low in the chars. They adopted their own indigenous knowledge livelihood strategies that were well adapted to the strongly seasonal and uncertain environment. Infrastructure is poor in the island chars, for example fewer schools, and health care facilities and travel to such places is time consuming and expensive. Health worker visits appeared to be less frequent. In addition to the major physical risk associated with the river, char dwellers in particular 44

45 are being marginalized due to poor communication networks. The combination of physical and social characteristics make the chars one of the poorest parts of Bangladesh, with the people being amongst the most vulnerable. Employment opportunities are decreasing. People are being displaced and their access to work is low. Land rights are very complicated; consequently, with poor people often losing their land to the powerful. Besides agricultural day-labor, share cropping and share rearing for absentee landlords, alternative income sources are even scarcer than on the mainland. Lower literacy rates, inadequate health facilities are making them poorer socio economically in terms of food insecurity. 6.2 Natural disasters and chronic/extreme poverty Floods and droughts cause most of the world s natural disasters. There are about US$10 billion flood losses all over the world every year. This vulnerability turns into poverty when the poor people do not have access to resources. Due to recurrent natural disasters in Bangladesh, this lack of resources produces other vulnerabilities like food insecurity, unequal resource distribution between different socioeconomic groups, gender gap, violence against children and women, downgraded social mobility, and decrease in income generating employment opportunities. Therefore, the vulnerability occupies the lack of capability, which reproduces multi-dimensional poverty. Figure 15: The Nexus between natural disasters and chronic poverty in Bangladesh The multidimensional characteristics of poverty indicate the lack of economic, human, political, socio-cultural and protective capabilities, which create other problems of equity, property rights, and the lack of good governance. Recurrent natural disasters are the major causes of these major 45

46 poverty conditions. These problems incorporate the social, cultural, political, economic and environmental dimensions. For example, when people do not have economic opportunities, they exploit forest resources and ecosystem services. Both extreme flood and drought conditions affect the same place at different times. The lack of capabilities due to unequal access to resources exacerbates the already vulnerable poor people, forcing them to live in the insecure and polluted location. Figure 16: Projected poverty levels in 2030 in countries ranking highest on the multi-hazard (earthquakes, cyclones, droughts, extreme heat and floods) index 35 Since access to land is not equitable in Bangladesh, the landless population is on the rise due to recurrent natural disasters, also increasing urban unemployment. The present urban population growth rate of Bangladesh is the consequences of poverty. As a process of flood coping strategy, the affected people are forced to rearrange their economic priorities, shifting a portion of their budget to flood coping leads to a situation where the poor people are exposed to difficulties in 35 The figure shows a set of countries with the highest exposure to the five hazards in 2030, plotted against their vulnerability to poverty, which is a measure of the risk they face of future poverty when presented with shocks, such as natural disasters. The circles indicate projected poverty numbers for each of the countries in 2030 assuming a baseline projection. This graphic does not account for the capacity of each country to manage disaster risk. 46

47 many aspects of their daily lives. Crops are washed away within a few minutes despite preventive measures. The damage of crops exacerbates the rural poverty, which influences norms, values, self-esteem, honesty, dignity, social relation and social interaction, etc. This vulnerability of intangible assets reflects in different forms of social, economic and cultural perspectives, which creates downward social mobility for generations. Map 6: Map of Poverty (left), and Flooding and tidal Surges (right) in Bangladesh Most of the people of Bangladesh live in villages and most of the people are poor. And the major people live on agriculture. Natural disasters often cripple their economy, especially in the agricultural activities. People not only lose their houses, cattle, crops, trees and so on but also lives. Thus they become very helpless and lead very miserable lives indeed. For example, the recent cyclone Sidr of 2007 caused heavy economic losses. The damage and loss assessment for crops, livestock, and fisheries is estimated to be Tk.30.2 billion (US$ million), of which Tk.1.5 billion (US$ 21.3 million) is damage to assets and Tk billion (US$ million) is production loss 36. More than two million farming families were affected by the cyclone Sidr. Thousands of people became jobless after the disaster. For a long time, thousands of the poor people have to live on aids or reliefs from foreign countries, NGOs and the Government of Bangladesh. Many people also depend on their relatives. Agriculture suffers significantly due to frequent natural disasters. Poor farmers are the main victims of natural disasters. In the coastal areas, the poor fishermen are the greatest victims of 36 Report, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh: Damage, Loss, and Needs Assessment for Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction, op. p

48 cyclones, because they lose their fishing boats and other necessary equipment. On the other hand, salinity in the coastal areas increases blood pressure, which is risky during pregnancy as it increases maternal mortality in this area. Map 7: Natural disaster, poverty and deprivation Source: Sen and Ali (2015). Relatively high extreme poverty is evident in zones prone to adverse ecology, which include North-West and North-East, South-West and South-Central areas of Bangladesh (Map 5). This encompasses (a) the river-erosion belts of Kurigram, Gaibandha and Jamalpur (with very high incidence of income and non-income poverties); (b) the haor areas (very high incidence of nonincome poverty); (c) coastal areas of greater Khulna and Barisal divisions in the South prone to tidal surges and storms (with relatively high incidence of income-poverty), and (d) pockets of ecological vulnerability in the South-Central region i i.e. areas in the eco-zone of Meghna Basin. North-Western parts (Zone 1) are marked by high extreme poverty and ecological vulnerability 48

49 (i.e. river-erosion areas). Geographical remoteness (such as Haor areas) is the single most important factor causing relatively high level of non-income poverty (Sen and Ali, 2015). 6.3 Environment- and climate-induced migration Migration is a traditional social phenomenon in Bangladesh. In most cases, migrations occur due to social, economic and health reasons. Climate change induced migration or Climate Refugees appeared only recently in the social history of Bangladesh. Extreme climate events like floods, cyclones and tidal surges, as well as gradual impacts of climate change like salinity or river erosion, lead to climate induced migration. The effect of climate change on women and girl children is more adverse than their male counterparts. For instance, if prolonged drought occurs due to climate change, women and girls need to spend more time to collect water. They also experience undernutrition if food shortage occurs due to the culture of intra-household distribution of food against them. Increased salinity intrusion causes health hazard for pregnant women because drinking saline water leads to high blood pressure for them. Climate change is expected to affect the movement of people in at least four ways: i. The intensification of natural disasters both sudden and slow-onset leading to increased displacement and migration; ii. The adverse consequences of increased warming, climate variability and of other effects of climate change on livelihoods, public health, food security and water availability; iii. Rising sea levels that make coastal areas uninhabitable; and iv. Competition over scarce natural resources potentially leading to growing tensions and even conflict and, in turn, displacement. In most cases, the migrants are extremely poor. Their poverty is further intensified by impacts of climate change, which mark the point of their departure from the homeland where they leave behind their relatives, their connections and a past marked by frustrations and sufferings. But often, their future is gloomy, full of uncertainty and unpredictability. Climate change increases poverty and worsens food security. Urban poverty increases if environmentally displaced people keep moving into the slums of the cities. This creates pressure on limited natural resources like land and water. Agriculture employs around half of the country s labor force, the vast majority working at subsistence level or as small-scale farmers. In some rural areas farming is the only livelihood option. Agriculture faces a number of challenges of vulnerability to natural disasters. The rising temperatures, changes to rainfall and increasingly intense extreme weather events associated with climate change already exacerbate many of these underlying vulnerabilities, with increasing risks to crop yields, livestock, infrastructure and assets like machinery. More intense extreme weather events would have a significant impact on poverty and hunger in Bangladesh. This is clear from past disasters, such as the 2004 floods during which 38 out of the country s 64 districts were inundated and more than two million tons of rice crops were destroyed. Crop and livestock losses and land degradation resulted in people from affected areas being forced to change their occupation, and nearly one-third of the affected population was left unemployed. Food consumption fell during the floods, with calorie consumption of flood-exposed households 49

50 lower than that of households not exposed to flooding. Open water ecosystems in Bangladesh have been seriously degraded not only as a result of pollution, land use changes and mismanagement but also the already visible impacts of climate change such as prolonged droughts and saltwater intrusion. Figure 17: The influence of climate change on the drivers of migration Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) describes the salinization of groundwater stores and fluctuation of soil salinity as a major concern, and has stated that this problem is a leading cause of soil degradation. Approximately 12,000 km of arable land in coastal and offshore areas are adversely affected by salinity. As the impacts of climate change take hold, the economic and ecological consequences of salinization will become increasingly profound. Experts are particularly concerned about the impact of rising salinity on ecologically-sensitive ecosystems, such as the Sal forest zone in the north and the Sundarbans in the south. The resulting forest declines could lead to a 50 percent loss of wood from the Sundarbans. This is likely to have major economic consequences for more than 300,000 people who directly depend upon this area for food, fuel and income. Mangrove decline will further undermine Bangladesh s resilience to climate change, as the root systems of the Sundarbans also play an important role in stabilizing coastal soils and providing a buffer for the coastal area from the winds and storm surges associated with cyclones. In May 2009, devastating cyclone Aila, hit the same southwest coastal zone areas that were affected by the smaller cyclone Bijli in April 2009 and devastated by cyclone Sidr in November Aila killed only 193 people, but it displaced more than 297,000, and severely damaged infrastructure, institutions, crops and cultivable land, causing a huge influx of saline water into agricultural land and fresh water areas. Many displaced people would have returned home if given access to basic services such as fresh water and their preferred livelihoods, but assessments more than two years after cyclone Aila suggest most have been forced to migrate, particularly to urban 50