Leaving ancestral homes, every day hundreds of people arrive in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Whether losing their homes to river erosion or for an opportunity to live better, the reason most often is no work back home. The consequences of poverty lead them towards Dhaka, the only place that holds promises in their eyes.
These city-bound village folks living below poverty line have a community of their own and are the majority of the population. In the city as day labourers, they reside in slums, on roadsides or other unhygienic places. They can barely make enough money to live day in day out.
This huge growing community are quite unable to afford city healthcare. When in need, they look forward to semi-trained quacks that result death or physical disability. Mothers in such poor urban communities give birth in an outdated way whereas safe childbirth is a right to every mother in our time. Such is the story of Sajila, who is expecting her fourth child. Her poverty-ridden family does not seem to be concerned about the consequences of having an expanded family. Nonetheless, Sajila continues nurturing her hope to have another male-child this time.
Sajila, a working mother, her husband, her mother-in-law and her three children (two daughters and a son) make up her family, living in the Korail slum in Dhaka city. She continues to work as a day labourer to support her husband’s bare income during her pregnancy. Quite understandably, Sajila cannot avail proper medical support an expecting mother should get.
However, I began my photo shoot on Sajila when she was four-months pregnant. She lived in a small, suffocating and unhealthy room in the Korail slum surrounded by a ditch. Talking about healthcare, there are some untrained midwives helping the pregnant mothers in the slum even if the procedure is unsafe.
Death-rate at the pregnancy period in Bangladesh is 440 among every 100000; highest in the world. Death rate at child birth is even higher. Since 2007, the rate is 151(either child or the mother) in every thousand. As for the children, the number is 61 per thousand. The high death-rate results from most child-births being supervised by untrained midwives.
Sajila finally decides to give birth to her child under the supervision of a midwife. She believes, if she has God by her side, she will make it safely, for all her three children have been born this way.
Living with even little money and starving at times, Sajila did not forget to take advice from the midwife about the dos and don’ts. Finally on the due date, Sajila had her baby boy delivered normally under the guidance of that very midwife in an unhealthy atmosphere. It might sound incredible to many, but Sajila walked herself home with her son only after an hour. Later the family moved back to the village because they could no longer survive in the city.