Mashuda Shefali Khatun, a dedicated activist for women's rights, is pioneering a solution to their plight by creating the first low-cost, safe, decent hostels for working women in Dhaka City. Beyond housing, Shefali addresses the women's socio-economic problems with linked services that empower them to maintain their hard-earned financial independence and freedom.

Booming Industry Draws Women

The readymade garment industry in Bangladesh has boomed since the early 1980s, with help from government incentives, making it Bangladesh's largest export sector. Sales of apparels total about US$4.2 billion and comprise some 76 percent of Bangladesh's total export earnings, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

The number of garment manufacturing factories exploded from 573 factories in 1984 to more than 3,000 by the year 2000. They employ some 1.5 million workers, 90 percent of whom are women. Associated industries and services employ another 10 million people, according BGMEA estimates.

This phenomenal growth has created a huge influx of rural migrants who come to search for work in the capital city Dhaka where the concentration of factories is greatest. The majority of women garment workers have arrived recently (79 percent), are young (more than 80 percent are below the age of 20) and more than 75 percent are single, according to a 1991 report by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.

Garment workers heading to work in the morning at the Export Promotion Zone, Chittagong, Bangladesh

The attraction of the garment factories is that they are willing to employ women without experience or education, and to provide on-the-job training. Women who arrive in the city come from a sheltered rural existence and are forced to adjust to exhausting work and rigid time schedules. Typically, garment workers log an average of 12-14 hours a day, including overtime, seven days a week.

Without being the least bit "street smart," they struggle to find work, housing, and transportation, and are subject to risks and harassment, both in the factory and outside. Neither the state nor private sectors provide facilities for them. In fact, they are discriminated against socially and financially.

The conservative society frowns on single women living on their own, and most landlords refuse to rent to them. Their ability to pay is also very limited.

An unskilled worker may start with a salary of 500 taka (about US$9) per month, earning an average of 700-800 taka (US$13-15) per month with overtime. Skilled machine operators earn 1,200-1,500 taka (US$22-27), and supervisors make more than 2,000 taka (US$36).

Typically, rent is about 1,200 taka (US$22) for an 8- by 10-foot bamboo and tin structure with a dirt floor, and no utilities included. Women garment workers who live in small groups, or as boarders with families, generally are overcharged in the slums and pay from 300 to 500 taka (US$5-9) each – about one-third of their income. Although they pay no advance or security deposit for this housing, neither is there tenant security because there is no lease and no notice given to vacate.

A congested slum by the railway line near Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka

A 1994 study found that more than half the garment workers have less than 30-square-feet of living space per person. They have access to basic utilities, but must share toilet, bathing, and cooking facilities with up to 30-40 people.

Creating Safe Space

In the male-dominated society, these single "unprotected" women must be wary of verbal and sexual abuse while walking to work, and are especially unsafe traveling at night. Thus, they prefer to live close to the factories, which also saves them transportation time and costs.

Personal safety and the safety of their possessions is a major concern. These women often are labeled as prostitutes and harassed if they live together, or exploited and over-burdened with household tasks as boarders.

One girl moved four times in search of safe urban shelter. At her first lodging with a married sister, she escaped an attempted rape. She suffered repeated sexual molestation at accommodations with other relatives until she was raped.

Mursheed (above), age 16, started working at a garment factory as a helper. Her starting pay was 850 taka (US$16) per month. She is the youngest of two brothers and five sisters. Her elder brothers are still in the village and work as fishermen. They don't approve of her working at the garment factory. They think that once women start to work and earn, they break free and lose their shame. To which Mursheed responds, "If I want to, why can't I remain good?"

The "non-formal private sector is the problem," Shefali said. "They do business without investment – just acquire land and rent it."

Shefali created Nari Uddug Kendra (NUK – "Center for Women's Initiatives") in 1991 to tackle these problems. Her innovation is working within the commercial housing market to rent buildings near garment factories that can be converted to decent, low-cost, safe hostels for women workers.

Before founding NUK, Shefali worked in the development sector and traveled widely for 11 years. She worked for the Thai government (Ministry of Women's Affairs), citizen sector organizations (CSOs), women's groups, and donors. This period culminated with a position in the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), where she administered development funds for local CSOs.

While working at CIDA, Shefali noticed women garment workers "walking to work in groups with their tiffin-carriers (lunch pails)," she said. "I became very curious to know their life. For many of them, it was their first time in the city – without support networks, family, or relatives."

Shefali understood their lives and backgrounds, based on her own rural origins and work experience. She empathized with their situation, remembering her own vulnerability when she came to Dhaka as a rural adolescent to study.

Muscling In on Women's Education

These concerns inspired her to start a Friday-evening school in a garment factory area. Through personal contacts at some of the factories, she enrolled 76 garment workers and began conducting literacy classes.

In this way, Shefali established relationships with the women and gained an in-depth knowledge of their living conditions. The primary, urgent issue that emerged was their need for safe, secure and affordable housing in the city.

Three months later, Shefali's school was shut down by mastaans (musclemen). She suspects local garment owners were behind this action, wary of the consciousness-raising she was enabling.

The gang accosted her one night with the challenge, "What is your interest in these girls?" Unfazed, she shot back, "What is your interest? I just want to educate them, to help them."

Their interest was 50,000 taka (US$913) per month protection money. When she refused to pay or to be intimidated, they threatened the girls individually, warning them to stay away. But by this time, Shefali had gained an understanding of the many dimensions of the housing problems faced by women garment workers, and she was determined to find "immediate, temporary and long-term resolutions of the problem."

Now possessing a clearer sense of her mission, Shefali quit CIDA. "Anyone could do that work," she said. "But I have ideas and capability. Only I could do this, with my grassroots experience."

In search of an immediate solution and a "place for girls to meet," Shefali decided to rent space in an existing building. Here she provided hostel housing and basic education for some 100 women garment workers.

This proved extremely difficult. Most rental landlords were suspicious of her motives for housing such a large group of single women together.

She could not even purchase a house. Finally, Shefali managed to rent an entire unfinished building at high rates – by persuading the landlord that she could pay a one-year advance, which enabled him to complete construction of the building.

Meanwhile, she convinced the British High Commission to finance her project, for which she needed a legal identity. She founded NUK, and opened the first "Garment Working Women's Shelter and Development Project" for 150 girls in December, 1991. During this transitional period, Shefali was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship, which provided institutional and financial support and links to other Fellows.

Mashuda Shefali Khatun with hostel residents

NUK gradually expanded during the next six years. It now operates four hostels in different garment industry areas, providing living space for about 350 residents, who each pay 200 taka (US$3.65) per month. The rent rates at NUK's hostels are now 50 percent subsidized to make them affordable.

Earning the Support of Landlords and Neighbors

Shefali has been called everything from Boro Shaithan ("Big Devil") to brothel madam during her quest to provide safe and decent shelter for working women in the garment industry. She recalled one obnoxious phone call from an irate citizen several years ago, after a TV program showcased her first hostel.

"Why did you bring them into the city?" the caller yelled. "That, too, in a building! Why are they allowed to wear T-shirts? It is improper for good Bangladeshi girls."

Shefali responds with characteristic forcefulness and outrage when she feels confronted with female repression and gender inequity: "I did not bring them into the city – they are here, earning a living" she replied. "They need a decent place to live. They produce thousands of T-shirts and send them all over the world – why can't they wear the products of their own work?"

Shefali is not optimistic about private sector developers and landlords playing a positive role in the housing situation, because "they are only interested in their own profit," but she has managed to enlist the support of local landlords in areas where the hostels are located. They discovered that the residents are indeed hard-working women who just need proper housing, and this makes it is easier for NUK to find rentals. Landlords also like the fact that they can charge NUK more for a long-term lease than when they rent to individual families.

A night visit to a NUK hostel provides a glimpse of opportunities it affords residents that otherwise would be unlikely in Bangladesh's highly socially stratified and conventional society. The women live in a four-story building in a regular, middle-class residential neighborhood, rather than being relegated to the slums.

Evening in an NUK hostel

A watchman guards the entrance where collapsible iron gates are locked by 11 p.m. A friendly resident supervisor helps with admissions, files, orienting newcomers, and maintaining the house rules. NUK also employs doctors who make regular morning consultation visits.

At first, there were some complaints from neighbors about the workers and their late hours, but they adapted once they realized the residents are quiet and "good girls." More common are problems with neighborhood gangs and pimps looking for new recruits.

The hostel supervisor usually negotiates these difficulties, and the police are informed when necessary. Contrary to common public opinion, Shefali has found the police to be very supportive about resolving problems.

The women drift home between 7 and 10 p.m., exhausted from their factory work. Many go straight to the common room to relax and watch TV, while others nap. But the main activity for the night is preparing dinner.

Watching a Bengali movie on TV on a weekend afternoon

Although NUK tried instituting communal dining, the women rejected it. They prefer the freedom of cooking individually, according to food preference and income – expensive chicken, smelly salt fish, or cheap vegetables and lentils, and always rice. They persist in this, although they complain that the limited number of cooking burners (one for eleven girls) means that some women don't get to eat until between midnight and 1 a.m., while others get up at 3 a.m. to prepare breakfast and lunch to take to work.

Living arrangements are extremely cramped, with bunk beds packed into smaller rooms for six to nine girls, and a large 30-bed dormitory on the top floor. Generally, nine to eleven women share a toilet and bath.

There are no storage facilities, so most residents keep a locked steel trunk at the foot of their bed for clothes and personal possessions. Ventilation in the Dhaka heat is a problem, but NUK has done its best with strategically placed pedestal fans.

Making chapati (local bread) and cutting vegetables for cooking

Residents help keep the hostel clean, and have brightened the rooms with decorations and hand-painted pictures. They have formed a committee to deal with problems and complaints.

The women agree unanimously that thus is a huge improvement over slum living. When asked to list the advantages , they say, "safety and security," followed by "living close to the factory," and "low-cost" – which delineates their main priorities – space is not important.

The women seem very proud of their independent living situation and freedom. Their control over income and savings is evident in their attractive clothes and gold jewelry.

They feel free in a women-only hostel, and many have shed the restrictive dupattas (scarves) with which they must cover their heads and bosoms in modesty during the day. Unlike their peers, women at NUK hostels have learned that "gender is the difference between men and women in society – they are not treated the same."

Prodding Government and the Factory Owners

Shefali is optimistic that conditions have changed significantly since she began working in the low-income housing sector. The government and garment factory owners – who are the main players with the capacity to make a difference – are responding to the need for action, largely due to Shefali's tireless campaigning, reinforced by appropriate management and architectural models.

Shefali has brought an emphasis on well-documented research to NUK's work, combined with practical trials and advocacy. NUK supported visiting Fulbright Scholar Katharine Dunham in 1993-94 when she produced a study, "The Housing Situation of Female Garment Workers in Bangladesh," which provides excellent detailed information, analysis, and models. Dunham's study findings were widely and effectively disseminated at a national workshop in 1994, to which all the important stakeholders were invited: government, garment factory owners, academics, and civil society representatives.

This workshop led to increased recognition that female garment workers constitute an especially vulnerable sub-group of low-income workers who need public and private sector support for their housing. The Bangladesh government included NUK's model in its position paper at the 1996 UN Habitat Conference, and it was also supported by the non-governmental lobby.

In 1993, Shefali helped draft Bangladesh's National Housing Policy, which was adopted in 1997. She was instrumental in including provisions for urban housing for low-income groups, the disadvantaged, the destitute and homeless poor. Since then, she has lobbied the government persistently to meet these commitments.

A woman garment worker puts her hard-earned money into savings

However, the government sees its role as being a facilitator of private sector and CSO initiatives – through financial instruments and making unused public land available – rather than as a primary provider of urban housing for low-income women. There are a few government hostels for working women, but the expense and their admissions policies exclude garment workers.

Many government schemes and allocations tend to be politically motivated. Thanks, in large part to Shefali's efforts, the previous Prime Minister promised 500 million taka (US$9 million) for low-income and working women's housing. But instead, last year the money was granted to "Grihayon Tahbil," a low-income housing loan program administered through the central Bangladesh Bank for rural areas – the source of most votes.

NUK has consistently been denied loans for garment workers through this program on the grounds that it does not fund urban housing. But the same program made a substantial loan to BRAC, an influential and large development organization, to operate garment workers hostels, even though they lack experience in this arena.

Other government schemes are not very well conceived, according to Shefali. One program offered free land to construct hostels, but ownership would revert to the state after expiration of a 30-year lease. Developers were expected to build and operate the hostels at their own expense, recouping their investment through rental income. It is no surprise that neither private developers nor CSOs have shown an interest in this unprofitable scheme that is not linked to investment capital soft loans.

Factory Owners Climb Onboard

The most significant impact of Shefali's advocacy is a shift in the attitude of garment factory owners regarding provision of housing and health services for women workers. NUK has worked relentlessly to convince factory owners that because they depend on the women who toil in their factories, they should take responsibility for ensuring reasonable conditions outside. In any case, factory owners gain when they look to the bottom line: healthy, secure workers are more productive, less likely to switch to a different factory, and thus their profit margins will rise.

These efforts are finally paying off as more factory owners express an interest in establishing and managing hostels for women workers. NUK also has arranged for doctors to provide 100 factories with health services.

Women doing beni (braiding) – typically a trunk and space beneath the bed is used to store personal items

The problem for many garment factories is that they are located in commercial or residential areas where there is little opportunity to develop dormitories at the factory or in adjacent neighborhoods. However, there is a growing movement of companies to Export Processing Zones outside the cities in response to incentives that attract foreign investment. As a result, these factories face more pressure from international buyers to conform to recently enacted fair business practices and social auditing, that requires decent conditions for workers.

The government also has acquired land to implement a new policy of shifting all garment factories to a "Garment Palli" ("Village") on the outskirts of Dhaka. Shefali estimates that about 10 to 15 percent of factory owners are integrating dormitories into new factories that are being constructed in this zone.

NUK has signed an agreement with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) to develop housing, and workers' safety and health facilities, at the new industrial sites – a significant development. BGMEA will provide support to owners by negotiating for low-interest building loans, government land for dormitories, etc.

BGMEA has asked NUK to operate the dormitories, an arrangement that Shefali is strenuously resisting. "BGMEA wants to dump this on NUK," she said. "But the ownership of hostels and the entire responsibility should be with the owners. NUK will only extend consultancy-type services, designs, management, staff training, and skill development."

Building a Showcase

NUK recently received a CIDA grant to renovate its hostel facilities, because most of the buildings it rents are designed for family living and not well-suited to group living quarters. Unfortunately, the value of these improvements accrues to the landlord rather than NUK.

NUK has developed a detailed business plan to make construction of a large building, with optimum modular complexes to house from 200 to 2,500 women, a financially sustainable proposition with the use of low-interest financing. NUK sponsored a second national workshop to share this research with key interest groups.

As a result, in June 2000, the Ministry of Housing and Public Works offered NUK a loan-lease on land in Dhaka. NUK is reluctant to accept it, however, because squatters already occupy the land, and evicting them would raise a moral dilemma.

The major obstacle to Shefali's dream of developing stable, long-term housing for garment workers is the huge investment capital required to acquire land and finance construction. Land in Dhaka is expensive and not easily obtainable.

NUK's optimum design for a hostel assumes land costs are from 30 to 150 million taka (US$550,000 to $2.7 million) per acre, depending on location, and that construction costs will be 600 taka ($US11) per square foot. Because land costs are lower in outlying areas, NUK has recently invested micro-credit money from its rural program to purchase a .87 acre piece of land close to the Export Processing Zone outside Dhaka, where it plans to construct a housing unit for 2,500 workers.

Shefali is convinced that constructing and operating a large hostel unit will serve as an important showcase that will demonstrate the advantages to stakeholders. The modular design integrates dormitories, family units (for mothers with children), and a community development center with offices, a clinic, training rooms, guest rooms, and a nursery.

Shefali is seeking funds and loans for construction. She notes that most international financing institutions and aid partners have policy restrictions against making direct capital investments of this sort to CSOs, and would like to see this change.

The Fight for Independence Begins at an Early Age

Shefali's charisma and negotiating talents make success appear likely. She is capable of switching from a tough, activist-feminist to a charming, empathetic listener who can hoot with delighted laughter, crinkling her nose when she is amused.

She credits her commitment to women's empowerment and her persuasive abilities to her upbringing in a very conservative and rich rural family. She was required to attend a local religious madrassah school until the fifth grade.

"I still remember being covered up, with long sleeves – eight feet of dupatta – and how difficult it was to keep covered," she laughs. "I learned a lot about women's lives in the village – a lot of restrictions for girls, but freedom for boys; a lot of discrimination."

By age nine, Shefali's parents were facing intense social pressure and threats from community and religious leaders to accept marriage proposals for her. But this only made Shefali more determined to study, and to be independent.

She formed alliances with various uncles to persuade her parents to allow her to continue school, and she completed high school. Persisting in the face of her parents' fears and advice, she left home for university in Dhaka.

One incident demonstrates Shefali's style: upon receiving a peremptory summons from an influential uncle, she returned to the village from her university. She started cooking his favorite meal, and listened meekly while he demanded that she stop studying and get married.

Then she quietly asked, "How do you think your food will taste if I stop cooking it now?" He immediately understood, and refrained from further dissent. Years later, Shefali cut off relations with the same uncle when he insisted that her sister accept an unwanted marriage.

Learn to Love Yourself

Shefali's vision is to "institutionalize gender and human rights in the development process," and she sees women's housing rights as integral to this goal. She predicts there will be more urban housing initiatives for low-income women workers, professionals, and female-led households.

Thanks to the success of Shefali's model hostels, and the availability of government-subsidized loans, garment industry owners are seriously considering developing housing for workers, and other CSOs are joining the movement with their own projects. Both the public and private sectors can use NUK's design for housing and services as a model. Shefali expects to see it applied to other women's groups as urban congestion escalates. In response to demand, NUK now operates two financially viable hostels (that charge higher fees) for women students.

Meanwhile, the fate of Bangladesh's garment industry is uncertain as it is buffeted by the forces of geopolitics and the globalized economy. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., hostel residents are expressing concern about their fate because many of their factories have no work due to cancelled orders from the West. According to a recent report in The Daily Star, "more than 35 percent readymade garment units out of the 3,500 do not have any work and another 25 per cent are surviving on subcontract."

Thus, Shefali is working to build alliances with other organizations in order to provide practical motivational training and alternative employment for garment workers. NUK already operates numerous rural and urban programs aimed at mobilizing women as agents of change through skill building, advocacy, lobbying, and networking.

NUK hostels offer nighttime literacy classes; training workshops on health, nutrition, gender, and family and labor law; counseling on savings and banking; and skill development training to improve women's income-generating capabilities. If necessary, NUK will broaden the scope of the garment workers' hostels and adapt them to the needs of other low-income working women.

A health education class in a hostel

Women in NUK's hostels share a commonality of work and purpose: to improve themselves and their standard of living. Still, it hurts them that – in spite of their hard work for their nation in garment factories – many of the elite citizens of Dhaka continue to look down upon them, socially and morally. Shefali encourages them to be tough, yet her words are compassionate:

"First look after yourself. Look into your heart and know who you are, and what you have done, and love yourself – and ignore them."

Shefali would like to have links with international organizations that promote workers' rights and housing issues. She would also like to have links with international buyers to lobby contracted factories in Bangladesh to consider workers' housing issues as integral to improving workplace standards, and workers' rights. NUK seeks funding support, as grants or soft loans, to establish model housing units that can be replicated, and provide workers' need-based support services.

Ms. Mashuda Khatun Shefali
Executive Director
NUK – Nari Uddug Kendra (Centre for Women's Initiatives)
22/18 Khilji Road
Block B, Moammadpur
Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh

Postal Address:
GPO Box 2931
Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh

Telephone: (880-2) 911 5696, 812 5804
Fax: (880-2) 911 0088
Email: nari@bangla.net