On an evening of March 25, Munni, a sixteen years old pretty girl, was busy with making a dress in sewing machine at her shanty. Munni, works a readymade garment factory and lives with her mother in a slum in Tajgaon area in Dhaka. In her free time, the young girl works at home for earning extra money. She is preparing for marriage, said the shy girl.
Munni and her mother are poor but happy. Munni said, “We have poverty, have sufferings but we have dream.”
Munni’s mother Sofia Begum said, “She was a little girl in Pakistan period. Most of the time she did not get food and her two sisters and father died without treatment at that time. They had to live without food almost every day. Now, people who live in slum have no crises of food and cloth, moreover they have the ability to purchase luxury items like colour television. It has become possible as Bangladesh became independent.
She showed her greatest respect to the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Condition of all the slum dwellers is not same. “Some are in good condition, some are in bad. But now they hope for a better future. However, in Pakistan period, everything was hopeless,” said Sofia Begum, a woman aged over 60.
Talking at his office, Abdul Matlub Ahmad, president of leading business organization Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and chairman of Nitol-Niloy group, said once Bangladesh was known as a bottomless buskets in the world. Now, Bangladesh is emerging country in the world. According to reaserch organization PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bangladesh would be the 28th largest economy by 2030, he added.
Bangladesh has achived almost all the Millinium Development Goals (MDGs) in the areans like education, reducing maternal deaths, and child death. Bangladesh did better than India, Pakistan in some social indiactors, now the country is trying to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But, all the achievements become gloomy without social inequalities.
The writer is a journalist
