The hidden misery of the marginal group of people : The case of Street Vendors in Dhaka City

In the age of globalization neoliberalization has bestowed the world cities with a concentration of surplus population working in informal sector thus bring sufferings for them.

Neoliberalization has bestowed the world cities with a concentration of surplus population working in informal sector. This surplus urban population engaged in informal economy is a specific characteristic of dependent urbanization occurring in third world countries. Dependent urbanization incorporates over-urbanization and parasitic cities with low standard of living and high rate of unemployment. But the governments of third world countries like Bangladesh run by the interests of the IMF and World Bank cannot create formal employment for this large segment of urban populations. ‘Street vending’, is one of the the most common urban informal sector of the city. After the engagement of the street vending activities they face different types of problems like problems of harassment, eviction, confiscation and sometimes forced to provide goods in undervalued prices. The State mechanism in most of the cases is responsible to create all of these problems and in this regard police and municipal authority play the key role. Also then without finding any other sources of subsistence as well as their livelihood they are going through the process of vulnerabilities and sometimes they negotiate with the problem creator by providing money. This is the politics of informality. The street vendors are the right claim citizen although their rights are constantly violated by the state and thus they fall in the category of urban marginal group. 80% of the respondents have demand towards government and these are the security of their life and business, capital support, fixed place for business and the solution of harassment, eviction and confiscation. So it’s the duty of the government to fulfill their demand and include them in the main stream of the society.

Mike Davis (2004) in ‘The Urbanization of Empire: Mega-cities and the Laws of Chaos’ found the rapid growth of urban population devoid of industrial growth and the supply of informal jobs. In ‘Economic Restructuring as Class and Spatial Polarization’ from The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991), Saskia Sassen introduces us to the growing informal economic sector in New York, London and Tokyo under economic restructuring of world economy. Michael Humphrey and Shahadat Hossain in ‘Expanding Urban Slums’ combined the themes of rapid urbanization in developing world, the informalization of work, the concentration of poverty in cities, urban sustainability and limits to urban governance. Their findings reveal that rapid urbanization especially through rural-urban migration is occurring without industrialization leading to a concentration of poverty and informalization of work in the city ( Humphrey and  Hossain; 2005; 45). Hossain (2007) in his study ‘’Poverty, Household Strategies and Coping with Urban Life: Examining ‘Livelihood Framework’ in Dhaka City, Bangladesh’’ also found that most of the slum population (52%) was involved in low-paid self- employment due to scarcity of formal sector job to employ the unskilled or semi-skilled urban poor (Hossain; 2007:35).

It has been evident that 50% of the respondents didn’t do anything before the engagement of this business they were unemployed, 20 % were in service,14% were students and the rest 16% respondents were in the same profession. The average monthly income of the respondents is 6660 tk in BDT whereas the average monthly expenditure of the respondents is 7150 tk in BDT. thus they have the deficit of tk 490 in BDT.

Abdul Kalam, the tea seller, mentioned that, to run business in street of Dhaka city, we have to talk with the leader,otherwise they don’t permit us  to run business.

34.29% of the respondents have to make a agreement with government authority including police, municipal or local authority. 42.85% respondents make agreement with the political leaders of the respective areas. 14.29% have agreement with the gangster and only 8.57% have agreement with others people like the owner of the place. Majeda, the tea stall holder at Nilkhet area told that, there is no opportunity for the poorer to run their life by doing something in the put path due to the torture of the police. The study contends that major portion (54%) of the respondent faces the problem of harassment while running their business.

When i asked about the demand to government, Helal mia mentioned that,it is not important whether we have demand or not, we will not get anything. They don’t regard us as human, our life is value less to them, the things they do is only for the betterment of themselves. A major portion (90%) of the respondents replied that they didn’t get any governmental support to run the business and still now they are not getting any support from the government.

So it can be concludes that although these marginal group of people are the right claim citizen of the city but state as well as government are continuously and constantly denying their rights of living and thus they are passing their life throughout  the cycle of deprivation year after year . There is no one to care of them and their story of living remained unpublished with tons of tears.

Author's Note

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