DHAKA, May 9 — Twelve-year-old Alamin’s house rested on the bank of the Ilsha river in southern Bangladesh until last year, when the surging river eroded it and the family’s farmland away, forcing them to flee to a slum in Keraniganj, close to the capital Dhaka. Now Alamin — whose father...
DHAKA, May 9 — Twelve-year-old Alamin’s house rested on the bank of the Ilsha river in southern Bangladesh until last year, when the surging river eroded it and the family’s farmland away, forcing them to flee to a slum in Keraniganj, close to the capital Dhaka.
As more extreme weather drives worsening flooding, erosion and storms in low-lying Bangladesh, thousands of families like hers are moving to the slums of Dhaka. In Bangladesh, a fertile delta nation of close to 700 rivers, a difficult combination of more flood-driven erosion and little land for resettlement is driving many once-rural families into urban slums.
In slums around Dhaka, children are evident working in tanneries, shipyards, tailoring, or repairing automobiles. Others labour at vegetable markets or carrying luggage in bus, train and boat terminals.A sweating Alauddin, 10, has worked at a vegetable market in Dhaka for a few months now, carrying out tasks such as cleaning and shifting potatoes in metal bowls he can scarcely budge.
“My children will never go back to school,” he admitted. “We are struggling with rent and our daily livelihood. How would we bear educational expenses?” Bangladesh’s Annual Primary School Census for 2021 showed 10.24 million students attending 65,000 government primary schools — but noted the drop-out rate in 2021 was over 17 per cent, with more than 2 million children leaving classes.Alamgir Mohammad Mansurul Alam, director general of the Directorate of Primary Education, called the drop-out rate “alarming” and noted “one of the big reasons is climate change”.
Altogether 37 million children in Bangladesh have seen their education disrupted by school closures since the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to an October report by Unicef and Unesco, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.After her family’s home in Khulna Shyamnagar was destroyed by a cyclone last year, her family came to join an aunt living in a slum near Dhaka.
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