Photographs by Shehzad Noorani/Developing Images
Children from rural villages often pay a high price when their families migrate to Bangladesh's crowded cities, seeking to escape desperate poverty. Typically, they are left to fend for themselves at home in city slums while their parents are working. They lack schooling, proper nutrition and care because older relatives, who traditionally cared for the young, stay behind in the village.
Some children are even locked in rooms without food or water. Mothers pay a price too because their ability to work drops when they worry about their children, or they take time off to care for them.
This photo essay presents an 
innovative solution devised by Suraiya Haque (left), a former garment factory supervisor in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has introduced the concept of the workplace-based daycare center to Bangladesh, persuading garment factory owners to provide low-cost childcare centers in their factories by demonstrating that workers become more loyal and productive when they have decent childcare.
At the same time, women gain better access to employment and children get better care. The daycare centers are self-sustaining because costs are shared by employers and parents.
