| image bank | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Section: 1 | | ||||||||||
| Life Across The Borders/Photo Essay | ||||||||||
| Photographer(s): Mahbub Alam Khan Sumon | ||||||||||
|
They come everyday, across the river in search of a job, in search of a living. Some of them come as any simple human being would crossing any border any where in this world, while some of them come as criminals – we have had a tradition of that too. But what about the poor people who have been moving all over the face of the earth in search of a livelihood? Before constructing the borders to keep humanity as far away from different communities as possible, no one thought it was important enough to ask the wretched of this earth whether it was robbing them of two simple and paltry meals a day or not. Whether the Rohinga – the Burmese refugees – were living in sub-human conditions in a remote corner of Bangladesh was therefore not an issue that would unsettle our daily routines. The borders were created so that people of one community were not attacked and butchered by people of another community just like themselves – with almost the same dreams and another vision of life and flesh and blood and old age and love- hate-moments of laughter and deaths. It is funny that our sense of freedom and security depend on the amount of fear and insecurity that we harbour against the ‘other’. They started ‘trespassing’ into the land of another people since 1991. UN’s request prompted Bangladesh to give them a refugee status within its territories – refugees are not citizen, therefore the ‘shelters’ were not sheltered enough to ward off a few basic elements that tried to categorically cripple them over a period of the last fifteen odd years. Since torture under the Burmese Military Govt. was intolerable, they tried to migrate to Bangladesh through Akiab crossing the river Naff in search of shelter. The total number of migrants was 1milion* according to Govt. registration, but the actual figure is many times more than this. These ‘extra’ in huge numbers remain unlisted and live without any official refugee identity. Again officially this number is a ridiculous16000* people(Approx). This has been lead news for our media for over years now. I was interested to work on them for a long time. After going through different reports from newspapers and television my interest grew into a search for what was happening behind the official and un-official versions regarding their lives as refugees. Mahbub Alam Khan Sumon is a student of Pathshala, 5th batch.2005 |
||||||||||
| Photo Essay | ||||||||||
| . | ||||||||
| HR Pioneers | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Ain o Salish Kendro (ASK), is a legal aid and human rights resource centre. It provides free legal aid to the poor- women, workers and child workers... >> details | ||||||||
| In Brief | ||||||||
|
22 percent of country's population poor, destitute women
Dhaka, Feb 6 (BDNEWS)- About 22 percent of the total population of the country are poor and destitute women. According to women affairs directorate, there are 17,39,542 poor and destitute women in the country.13/02/06 >> details |
||||||||
|
||||||||
©
Drik 2001-2004