Street People in Dhaka

Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh. Many of the 9 million people who live in Dhaka are very poor. Some of those who live in greatest poverty are the street children. There are up to 1 million street children living and working on the streets of Dhaka.

street children

street children

Some of the children are on the street - they work, play and spend most of their day with other children on the street but have families to return to at night. These children often help the family earn money by working on the streets.

street children

street children

Other children are of the street - they survive without family, entirely on their own, except for the company of other street children or those willing to help and support them.

CSKS is a Street Children programme in Dhaka which supports children of the street and is one of the Global Footprints partners.

This activity gives you a chance to learn more about the problems facing street children. Below is a list of dangers and difficulties that children of the street have to face. What do you think are the most serious problems facing young people who live and work on the streets?

“Jamir shar is a youngster whose age is close to thirteen. This parentless lad came to Dhaka city three years ago. He lost his parents in a road accident. With nobody to take care of him, he sells nuts in different areas of Dhaka city. He lives with a family at Pirjangi Mazar in Motijheel, taking his two meals with them and giving them his total income, which ranges from Taka 50 to 60.” (Dhaka Courier)

“Anwar Ali sells tea, biscuits and cigarettes in the city’s parks. He came to Dhaka from Mymensingh (a district in Bangladesh) five years ago. His two sons live in Mymensingh with their mother. Sometimes Anwar Ali goes to his village. He lives near Khilgaon Rail Gate and starts his work at dawn returning late to his house made out of waste plastic.” (Dhaka Courier)

“Haris Ali, 40, lives at night in front of Sonali Bank at Motiheel Head Office. He came to Dhaka five years ago. At first, he was a laborer in Kamlapur rail station. He changed his track two years ago. Now he collects waste like scattered paper, broken pens, plastic stuff and different categories of vehicle parts. He sells these things at Nowabpur market. His regular income ranges from Taka 50 to 70.

Those three characters described are representative of the street people. There are thousands of characters like those in Dhaka city. You can find them in front of every market, commercial areas, in the bus terminals, around hotels, parks, on the pavements, around two main stadiums, all over old Dhaka and even on all VIP roads. They try to earn a living by doing various types of activities example, collecting rickshaws, serving tea, carrying goods in the terminals, selling various types of food and even water. Usually those street people go out with their torn and patched bags for the day’s collecting from garbage bins and those whom are beggars, go to those areas where they will get some kind of alms. Street people normally buy their meal from roadside food shops and eat sitting on bricks.

In Bangladesh Street people can be defined in two groups:

• Those who spend all the time in the streets as it is their home, where they eat, sleep, make friends and carry on other activities.
• Those who spend the day on the streets and at night they return home, even it be a mere shack in the slum.

In Bangladesh street people is increasing day by day mainly cause of migration to the urban streets, family breakdown, poverty and family size. People who are rootless or have been uprooted by flood, crop failure, river erosion etc. migrate to big cities. Most of the time, they don’t get any job so they beg on streets in order to make a living. In Bangladesh, about five hundred thousand people are engaged in begging. Street people don’t have any fundamental right like food, safe water, shelter, sanitation, health care and schooling.

Difficulties and dangers faced by children of the street

What do you think are the ten most serious problems?
Click on ten issues

Being hungry and not having enough to eat
Being tortured by police
Not having a bed to sleep on
Not enjoying the work they do on the streets
Feeling lonely; not having any friends
Not being able to get a job
Nowhere to go for protection from the rain
Feeling frightened and hopeless about the future
Not being able to learn to read, write and do maths
Being abused and robbed of their money by adults
Not having clean water to drink
Adults insulting them or physically hurting them
Not being able to get medicines when ill
Girls not being able to marry
Not having clean clothes to wear
Having very little money and earning very little from their work
Not having the power to protest against bad treatment by adults