- Brief created: 2022
- For policymakers
- Bangladesh
Women Construction Workers in Bangladesh: Health, Wellbeing, and Domestic Abuse during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Based on:
Journal Article (2022) ↗
It was about making visible some of the challenges and the gender-based violence that women construction workers in Sylhet faced due to being perceived as ‘bodies out of place’, and how opportunities to develop their creative skills not only enhanced self-worth but also enabled them to build a social enterprise.
Brief by:
Research collaborators:
This research paper was an output of a much larger project called GlobalGRACE, which also works with people based in Cape Town, Rio in Brazil, in Chiapas in Mexico, and the Philippines. As an indication of GlobalGRACE’s scope, the projects ranged across working with LGBTQ identified young people through creative writing, performance, and poetry to talk about their lives and experiences in the Philippines, which is a place where being LGBTQ identified can be difficult, dangerous and challenging, to setting up the first ever sex workers theatre company in South Africa by working with a group of sex workers and an NGO called SWEAT in Cape Town with partners at the University of Cape Town.
As the Bangladesh part of the project, we’ve been working with a group of female construction workers. Working on a building site is perceived as very masculinised labour and against gendered norms, as it is elsewhere in the world, but it’s also seen as taboo for women to be seen doing this kind of heavy labour in a very visible public sphere.
There are a lot of health harms because they’re very limited safety precautions. Women are working without any kind of safety, equipment or training, where there are a lot of physical dangers (climbing on scaffolding and buildings). But in addition, there is a lot of sexual violence and abuse that goes on between the male workers, co-workers and the Sardars (the supervisors). There’s an expectation of exchange of sexual favours in return for being given permission to do the day’s labour. So, there’s considerable exploitation and abuse, which includes going to and from the places of work. These women are often subjected to sexual harassment and abuse, because they’re seen as loose women, as bodies out of place, that they shouldn’t be there, and that they don’t belong. Mainly, they’re seen as violating traditional gender roles.
The women that do this are often migrants from rural communities and are coming from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. They likely didn’t go to school for very many years at all, they didn’t leave with any recognised qualifications and there levels of literacy were unlikely very high. And this is an area of work that they can do, which doesn’t require any formal qualifications or entry level skills.
It does however favour the young, so there’s also issues of ageing, which is very relevant.
Most of these women that we worked with were the main (or sole) breadwinners for various reasons (lone parent, the male breadwinner can’t provide, or they are a second or third wife). So they faced various layers of socio-economic deprivation and stereotyped gender norms constraints. But they were very resilient and doing amazing work of maintaining the families in this difficult situation.
Key findings
These women construction workers are discriminated against as ‘bodies out of place’ because they are going against traditional gender norms within the Bangladeshi context.
And yet they are also pushing the boundaries of those norms by making themselves visible in a masculinised public space. They are countering the discourses around male breadwinners and male skills because they are supporting wide networks of families and communities by themselves.
Initiatives like this give the space and opportunity for marginalised women to deepen their resilience, as well as their creative and entrepreneurial skills – with outputs being a huge social enterprise and planning successful events.
They are able to realise their potential and self-worth and this enhances their confidence and self-esteem. They have also created a new women's social network of support and care that has spread across the city and through their online enterprise.
Unplanned, these women produced a manifesto that outlined their demands.
These were: 1. equal pay for equal work, 2. fixed working hours, 3. payment for overtime, 4. financial support in case of accidents, 5. government should take stricter measures against sexual harassment in the workplace, 6. safety measures in the workplace to protect them from physical injury (as there is nothing right now), 7. one meal a day from the recruiter, 8. having two short breaks in the day, 9. The issuing of special ID cards to workers to protect them from unwanted harassment. 10. The recruiter provides access to low-cost housing facilities. 11. Access to drinking water and sanitation facilities at work and at home. 12. Ensuring the contractors provide the workers the wages they promise. 13. Is promoting gender equality at all levels. 14. Is establishing a labour Welfare Board for (female) workers – all conditions they currently don’t have.
When we started working with women who are not construction workers, particularly, but other working class and marginalised women in Sylhet, they also created their own manifesto of women worker's rights – which was along a similar line.
Creating visual imagery including short films, photography, posters and pamphlets, and putting these online through exhibitions and as sources of information in a digital format as well as in physical spaces, played a big role in communicating their experiences and helped others to better understand these women's lives and draw comparisons between their own experiences.
Having the photographic exhibition and short film exhibition, running alongside the posters with all the workers’ rights demands on them, made those connections more tangible, much more real, between the experiences of women workers on the building sites, the images of their lives, and their working lives as well as their whole lives as key breadwinners and supporters of their families and wider communities. So this approach worked well for this group of participants.
Proposed action
Protect the human rights of these women construction workers by listening to their demands and implement their priorities, as outlined in their workers manifesto
Employers of construction workers are responsible for upholding good working conditions
Local NGOs in the area need to take this forward into the future to promote the youth workers’ rights and demands for support
A labour welfare board needs to be established, which includes the representation of women workers
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to iDE Global
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Women Construction Workers in Bangladesh: Health, Wellbeing, and Domestic Abuse during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Cite this brief: Clisby, Suzanne. 'Women Construction Workers in Bangladesh: Health, Wellbeing, and Domestic Abuse during the COVID-19 Pandemic'. Acume. https://www.acume.org/r/women-construction-workers-in-bangladesh-health-wellbeing-and-domestic-abuse-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Brief created by: Professor Suzanne Clisby | Year brief made: 2022
Original research:
- T. C., & Clisby, S., ‘Women Construction Workers in Bangladesh: Health, Wellbeing, and Domestic Abuse during the COVID-19 Pandemic’ 11(2) (pp. 83) https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11020083. – https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/2/83
Research brief:
It was about making visible some of the challenges and the gender-based violence that women construction workers in Sylhet faced due to being perceived as ‘bodies out of place’, and how opportunities to develop their creative skills not only enhanced self-worth but also enabled them to build a social enterprise.
This research paper was an output of a much larger project called GlobalGRACE, which also works with people based in Cape Town, Rio in Brazil, in Chiapas in Mexico, and the Philippines. As an indication of GlobalGRACE’s scope, the projects ranged across working with LGBTQ identified young people through creative writing, performance, and poetry to talk about their lives and experiences in the Philippines, which is a place where being LGBTQ identified can be difficult, dangerous and challenging, to setting up the first ever sex workers theatre company in South Africa by working with a group of sex workers and an NGO called SWEAT in Cape Town with partners at the University of Cape Town.
As the Bangladesh part of the project, we’ve been working with a group of female construction workers. Working on a building site is perceived as very masculinised labour and against gendered norms, as it is elsewhere in the world, but it’s also seen as taboo for women to be seen doing this kind of heavy labour in a very visible public sphere.
There are a lot of health harms because they’re very limited safety precautions. Women are working without any kind of safety, equipment or training, where there are a lot of physical dangers (climbing on scaffolding and buildings). But in addition, there is a lot of sexual violence and abuse that goes on between the male workers, co-workers and the Sardars (the supervisors). There’s an expectation of exchange of sexual favours in return for being given permission to do the day’s labour. So, there’s considerable exploitation and abuse, which includes going to and from the places of work. These women are often subjected to sexual harassment and abuse, because they’re seen as loose women, as bodies out of place, that they shouldn’t be there, and that they don’t belong. Mainly, they’re seen as violating traditional gender roles.
The women that do this are often migrants from rural communities and are coming from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. They likely didn’t go to school for very many years at all, they didn’t leave with any recognised qualifications and there levels of literacy were unlikely very high. And this is an area of work that they can do, which doesn’t require any formal qualifications or entry level skills.
It does however favour the young, so there’s also issues of ageing, which is very relevant.
Most of these women that we worked with were the main (or sole) breadwinners for various reasons (lone parent, the male breadwinner can’t provide, or they are a second or third wife). So they faced various layers of socio-economic deprivation and stereotyped gender norms constraints. But they were very resilient and doing amazing work of maintaining the families in this difficult situation.
Findings:
These women construction workers are discriminated against as ‘bodies out of place’ because they are going against traditional gender norms within the Bangladeshi context.
And yet they are also pushing the boundaries of those norms by making themselves visible in a masculinised public space. They are countering the discourses around male breadwinners and male skills because they are supporting wide networks of families and communities by themselves.
Initiatives like this give the space and opportunity for marginalised women to deepen their resilience, as well as their creative and entrepreneurial skills – with outputs being a huge social enterprise and planning successful events.
They are able to realise their potential and self-worth and this enhances their confidence and self-esteem. They have also created a new women’s social network of support and care that has spread across the city and through their online enterprise.
Unplanned, these women produced a manifesto that outlined their demands.
These were: 1. equal pay for equal work, 2. fixed working hours, 3. payment for overtime, 4. financial support in case of accidents, 5. government should take stricter measures against sexual harassment in the workplace, 6. safety measures in the workplace to protect them from physical injury (as there is nothing right now), 7. one meal a day from the recruiter, 8. having two short breaks in the day, 9. The issuing of special ID cards to workers to protect them from unwanted harassment. 10. The recruiter provides access to low-cost housing facilities. 11. Access to drinking water and sanitation facilities at work and at home. 12. Ensuring the contractors provide the workers the wages they promise. 13. Is promoting gender equality at all levels. 14. Is establishing a labour Welfare Board for (female) workers – all conditions they currently don’t have.
When we started working with women who are not construction workers, particularly, but other working class and marginalised women in Sylhet, they also created their own manifesto of women worker’s rights – which was along a similar line.
Creating visual imagery including short films, photography, posters and pamphlets, and putting these online through exhibitions and as sources of information in a digital format as well as in physical spaces, played a big role in communicating their experiences and helped others to better understand these women’s lives and draw comparisons between their own experiences.
Having the photographic exhibition and short film exhibition, running alongside the posters with all the workers’ rights demands on them, made those connections more tangible, much more real, between the experiences of women workers on the building sites, the images of their lives, and their working lives as well as their whole lives as key breadwinners and supporters of their families and wider communities. So this approach worked well for this group of participants.
Advice:
Protect the human rights of these women construction workers by listening to their demands and implement their priorities, as outlined in their workers manifesto
Employers of construction workers are responsible for upholding good working conditions
- One of the big local employers of construction workers is the local university, and so one of the first steps is to set up a meeting and meet with the Vice Chancellor and treasurer to talk about how they could implement some of these demands when they are contracting work.
Local NGOs in the area need to take this forward into the future to promote the youth workers’ rights and demands for support
A labour welfare board needs to be established, which includes the representation of women workers