One day, a woman came to the home of Suraiya Haque (seated left), seeking domestic employment, but Haque refused because the woman had a child with her. Upon reflection, Haque regretted her actions and started discussing the idea of workplace daycare.
The national Constitution ensures equal rights for women in all spheres of life, and the Factory Act of 1965 requires any workplace having 50 or more women employees to provide daycare facilities. But the government has failed to implement many of these agreements and laws, and most organizations and enterprises choose to ignore this requirement. Haque established an organization called Phulki in the garage of her home in 1991, and her two sons donated their first paycheck for the startup costs. It became the first organization to set up workplace-based daycare centers in Bangladesh.
Haque believes daycare should be an integral part of employment, and as such, should be sustainable and involve the stakeholders.
|
|
|
Phulki establishes daycare centers in factories and offices where the business owner provides the space, startup costs, and caretaker salaries. The mothers supply the food and pay Phulki to manage the center. Phulki manages the center for a period of six to twelve months, after which the factory can take over the operations, for which Phulki provides management training.
If the factory opts not to take over the daycare, Phulki continues its service for a fee. Five factory-based nurseries (started between 1994 and 1999) have been handed over to the factory management. When new nurseries are established, employers are asked to sign a contract in which they agree to take over management at the end of one year.
|
|
Suraiya Haque and Hasnat Musarraf (above), Director of the Standard Group Garment Factory, open a daycare center at a garment factory in Mirpur, Dhaka
|
|
When Haque approaches factory owners, she always stresses the economic and social benefits of daycare programs. Phulki's approach is not to antagonize or confront the factory owners, but to
bring about a change in attitude by demonstrating that social investments by
factory owners create economic returns.
The factory owners regard the factory-based centers as successes. At first, owners thought the centers would be an unnecessary burden, especially because none of the factories was built to accommodate such a facility. Factories that have established daycare centers, however, have continued the program because they are directly benefiting from it. They find that workers who take maternity leave return to work sooner, there is less absenteeism, and production is more efficient. Some owners that have assumed management of their daycare centers now provide other facilities – e.g., Kazi Fashion provides food, Continental provides a cooking facility, and some employers assign female cleaner/guards to be part-time caretakers.
BanTai Industries claims that the benefits of workplace-based social services (e.g., reduced migration and absenteeism) outweigh the costs of service provision, estimated at about only 5 percent of total recurring
expenses. At BanTai's factories, the mix of social services includes workplace-based daycare as well as a medical program, family planning, non-formal education for children of workers, and a savings program.
Phulki has been lobbying garment buying houses to include childcare in their compliance requirements, so that all garment manufacturers have factory-based nurseries. She is working to involve the Bangladesh Garments Manufacture and Export Association (BGMEA) in establishing factory daycare centers, under an agreement whereby BGMEA will promote the program among its members and each year assign a certain number of factories to be brought under it.
Haque has asked major American garment buyers, such as Nike, GAP, Reebok, and L.L. Bean, why they do not include childcare in their compliance requirements for factories that they purchase from. Reebok has replied that they will list factories with daycare facilities as good factories. Mondial, a major European clothing buyer, has asked their three suppliers about the daycare program. Phulki will soon be starting work with these factories.
|
|
Social mobilizers, such as the woman at left, above, in
Dhaka's Bashanti slum, inform and motivate mothers about
Phulki's service
|
While Phulki provides early childhood development and pre-school education at its daycare centers, parents are asked to contribute food and a portion of the total expenses, and are involved in regular meetings to participate in management and education. In the morning, mothers can bring children the same packed lunch of rice and lentils that they themselves eat.
Lactating mothers have access to their infants during working hours, so that they can breast feed. The factory is responsible for providing dry snacks like biscuits, puffed rice and fruit. Some factories also provide meals.
|
© 2001 Changemakers
Photographs by Shehzad Noorani/Developing Images
|
|
|
|
|
