The Fact Find Mission to Bangladesh
2000

 

·        100,000 people (20,000 households) in 44 settlements lost their homes and belongings in the demolitions, most of which occurred without any prior written notice, only loudspeaker announcements the day before.  The bulldozers and demolition crews were accompanied by thousands of police in riot gear, who responded to resistance with beatings, shooting and tear gas.   

·        A majority of those evicted were single mothers with children, many working in the city’s 2,000 garment factories located around the city center.  Most lived close to their jobs, since they could not afford transport, and relocation to peri-urban areas would have meant loss of jobs.  

·        The government’s action violated the Local Government Act, the Constitution of Bangladesh, international covenants, conventions and commitments which have been recognized by the international community and signed by the Bangladesh Government.  

·        In the absence of any compensation or relocation alternatives, most communities have built shacks in nearby places, some are renting in nearby slums that were not evicted, and some moved in with their relatives nearby.  The destruction of their houses has caused an enormous economic and social loss to these families and has meant deteriorating health, interruption of children’s education, loss of jobs, and put enormous strain on relatives and friends.  

·        The Home minister promised to resettle many communities in the very distant Kalapani, Mirpur (where daily commute would cost 50 Tk per day, meaning most of their earning would be spent on transportation), but this never happened.  

 

Fact-finding mission . . .

 The Center on Housing Rights and Eviction (COHRE) and ACHR, with the support of local NGOs in Bangladesh, organized a fact-finding mission in August 2000 to investigate the large-scale evictions that had taken place. 

 The 4-member team included  housing professionals and community activists from Philippines, Pakistan and Nepal who spent a week in Dhaka, meeting with communities that were evicted, NGOs, lawyers, urban planners, government ministers and representatives from bilateral aid agencies.  Here are some points from the mission’s report:     

 

For a copy of the mission’s report contact ACHR.

Ted Anana,  
ACHR Eviction Watch Program
c/o Urban Poor Associates
80-A, Malakas Street, Barangay Pinyahan
Diliman, Quezon City 1116,  PHILIPPINES
Tel (63-2) 426-4119,    Fax  426-4118
E-mail:  upa@pacific.net.ph

 Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions 
83 Rue de Montbrillant
1202 Geneva,  SWITZERLAND
Tel / Fax  (41-22) 734-1028
E-mail  sleckie@attglobal.net

Website    www.cohre.org

BANGLADESH

 Demolitions and stand-offs in Dhaka . . .

 For poor migrants from Bangladesh’s impoverished and flood-ravaged rural areas, Dhaka offers hope and jobs - on construction sites, in garment factories and other industries, where demand for cheap labor is high.  Despite the existence of such successful initiatives as Grameen Bank, people are still flocking to the city.  Dhaka has grown from 500,000 in 1971, to over nine million today, 70% of whom are poor, and 40% of whom live in informal settlements and run-down rental units. 

 The government’s attitude towards this population, whose hard work underpins the city’s industrial prosperity, has been schizophrenic.  After enormous forced evictions in the 70s, a national housing policy was adopted in 1993 which said all the right things:  eviction only as a last resort, and never without rehabilitation.  In 1997 a government minister was sacked for ordering the eviction of a  slum, and the Prime Minister pledged that wherever possible, informal communities would be redeveloped in situ.

 But then between May and August, 1999, as monsoon rains lashed the city, a wave of violent, forced evictions swept through the slums of Dhaka, following a government decision to demolish all slums in the city.  Defending these actions, the Prime Minister asserted that “the city’s slums have become a safe refuge for terrorists and anti-social elements.”  Slum dwellers and NGOs petitioned the High Court to halt the evictions in late August.  The court upheld the government’s plan, but ruled that further evictions should be carried out only after making plans for rehabilitation.  Besides this ruling, the immediate and noisy chorus of condemnation from the international and local development community - especially the donors - slowed down the evictions considerably, but things remain tense.

Exploring alternatives :  Several months after the demolitions, two networks of NGOs and community groups, the Coalition for Urban Poor and Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh, which had been at the center of the resistance, organized a conference with all the local stakeholders on the issue of urban slums and eviction.  Leaders of community federations and NGOs from other Asian countries came to share their experiences working out alternatives to eviction such as land-sharing, in-situ upgrading and community-managed relocation.     

Upgrading communities
In the midst of the upheaval, the NGO Dustha Shasthya Kendra (DSK) continues to expand it’s work helping poor communities in Dhaka to improve badly needed water supply and sanitation services in their communities, on a cost-recovery, community-management basis.  The program has built strong working relationships between communities, support NGOs and local government agencies, and helped strengthen community networks.         

Experimenting in smaller cities
 In the city of Sirajganj, 100 miles from Dhaka, an enthusiastic and forward-thinking local government has offered a 20-hectare site for the relocation of 1,600 poor families living on the dangerously eroding banks of the Jamuna River.  With help from the UNCHS, the communities - and especially women - are now planning the layout of their new community, pegging out the roads and house plots and looking at affordable house designs.  The project is also experimenting with Community Development Committees, through which various government development programs will be channeled into the communities. 

 

Grim Facts

There are about 3,000 informal settlements in Dhaka, in which 4 million people live.  

75% of slums are on private land, 

25% on government land.  

Densities in these settlements go up to as high as 4,000 people per acre.  

Only half these households have access to formal water or electricity sources and only a third have some sort of drainage.

 

 

CONTACT 

Dibalok Singha, Director, 
Dustha Shasthya Kendra (DSK)
16514 Tejkunipara,  Tejgaon, 
Dhaka 12165  
BANGLADESH

Tel (880-2) 815-764,  
Fax (880-2) 863-060,  
E-mail :  dsk@citechco.net

Lalith Lankatilleke,
UNDP / UNCHS (Habitat)
LGED Bhaban,  Agargaon, 
Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, 
Dhaka 1207, 
BANGLADESH

Tel/Fax   (880-2) 911-6973
E-mail: lalith@lged.org