The Risky Society Where We Live In !

 

 The Risky Society Where We Live In !

 

Introduction :

 

Do we think where we live in? We live in a world that is full of risk, risks that we face a large degree all sphere of lives and where nature occurs  risk frequently every year in Bangladesh. That is a risk society. This is my personal belief that everyone is at risk during their daily life.Rana plaza disaster in Savar is one of the single examples of vulnerability of common people and also remind us how much risky society we live in. Millions of people suffer from the hardship of poverty. Currently one-third (31.5 percent) of its population are living below the poverty line. From the study, it is evident that, the incidence of poverty is higher in rural areas than that of the urban areas and the rate of decrease of poverty is also higher in rural areas (1.24 percent) than that of the urban areas (1.13 percent). About one-third (31.5 percent) of its population are still living below the so-called poverty line (HIES, 2010). Using the upper poverty line, in HIES 2010, head count rate (HCR) of incidence of poverty estimated at 31.5 percent at the national level, 35.2 percent in rural area and 21.3 percent in urban area. The number of population living below the poverty line has increased from 51.6 million in 1991-92 to 56 million in 2005 with an annual average rate of 0.314 percent at national level (Rahman et. al., 2012). More than 54% of preschool-age children equivalent to more than 9.5 million are stunted, 56% is underweight and more than 17% of preschool children are wasted in Bangladesh.(UNICEF (2010). State of the world’s children 2010. Leadership. UNICEF, New York.)

 

Though prevalence of “under five” malnutrition has declined steadily from 56% to 47% and “under five” mortality declined from 116/1000 to 88/1000 between the years 1996 to 20045, Bangladesh is still in the bottom line in the world context.(FAO (1999). Nutrition country profile: Bangladesh. FAO, Rome)

In Bangladesh, severe flooding caused three-thousand people to leave their residences daily, heading to Dhaka, the capital (Black et al., 2008). Afsar and Baker (1999) argued that these moves are temporary and mostly internal in nature. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction reported that Bangladesh is the most vulnerable country due to flood (cited in Akter, 2009:9). With this background, the country is expecting 63 million, and 78 million displaced people by 2015, and 2020 respectively and climate change will cause all these massive environmental displacements (Akter, 2009).

Bangladesh went through six severe floods in last 25 years causing 45 million people to be internally displaced (International Organization for Migration, 2010). Deforestation in hilly catchments causes more rapid and higher runoff and hence more intense flooding (Bangladesh Water Development Board, 2010: 5).

Bangladesh had received floods every three years for the last twenty years, affected people do not defer their decision to migrate because risk becomes higher if repeated flood occurs in the same land (International Organization for Migration, 2010). Rayhan and Grote (2007) reported that at least one member migrated permanently from one-fourth of the households. Droughts also come with land degradation, low livestock population, unemployment, and malnutrition (Chowdhury, 2010).

Around 5 percent of the slum population living in Dhaka comes from Rangpur, affected by severe drought called Monga. Another 20 percent of this region used seasonal migration as a survival strategy.(International Organization for Migration, 2010).

In Bangladesh, women face various forms of violence, ranging from wife abuse to rape, dowry killings, acid throwing, sexual harassment, and sexual slavery through trafficking in women (Zaman, 1999), Odhikar, a human rights coalition group in Bangladesh, reported that at the first nine month of 2003, in Bangladesh 278 women were victims of dowry related violence among those 184 were killed, 20 committed suicide, 67 were physically tortured, 11 sustained injuries from acid attacks and 2 were divorced (ibid, 2010)

 

The Rana Plaza collapsed in Savar on 24 April, 2013 ‐ one of the deadliest accidents in the history of the world’s industrial sector. The numbers of victims as reported in different estimates are: 3572 (MoLE, BGMEA, ActionAid), 3670 (CPD), 3948 (BILS), 3838 (Coordination Cell) and 3621 (Primark). A total of about 3572‐3948 victims have been reported. What a risky society  where we live in?

Definitions of risk:

Risk can be defined in a variety of ways. However I  define risk  as an uncertainty of reality or risks as threatening agents. For example environmental risk or natural hazards. Without uncertainty there is no risk, only clear danger. The probability or threat of quantifiable damage, injury, liability, loss, or any other negative occurrence that is caused by external or internal vulnerabilities. Risk is here related to a concrete event, either accidental (hazards) or deliberate (threats).

 

General discussion:

 

A student who always fears about his or her exam result and carrier. He or she faces some psychological problems during choosing his or her job. Sometimes one does not get well opportunities that he wanted in his carrier. Otherwise an employer who is at risk about his job .There is no security in his job and no good facilities that can maintain his whole family. So he sometimes feels very lonely and committed to bad things and addicted to drug. Parents are almost anxious about his son because of western cultures that are taking much popularity in our country. They are in fear if there only son becomes addicted to drug or go to hell. An unemployed always faces a fear of an uncertain future and feelings of hopelessness. When he completes his graduation, he faces mental pressure from his parent, relatives and society people about his job. Everyone tries to prove that he is burden to their family if he does not get good job. So he is in tension about his carrier, but his carrier is at risk or uncertain if he or she has no good lobbing or enough money. Only money can provide him a good job that I saw last few years.

 

Concept of Risk Society:

Risk society is a term coined by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens during the 1980s. According to Beck and Giddens, the traditional industrial class structure of modern society is breaking apart. Globalization creates risks that concerns people from all different classes; for example, radioactivity, pollution, and even unemployment. He points out that risks are also socially constructive and some risks are perceived as more dangerous because they are discussed in mass media more frequently, such as terrorism. Risk society leads to analysis of risks, causing prejudgment.

The term “Risk Society” is a neologism coined by German sociologist Ulrich Beck, in his book Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity, first published in German in 1986 and translated into English in 1992. There is a long-standing tradition in intellectual thought of choosing society labels"e.g., Acquisitive Society, Open Society, Affluent Society, Civic Society, Post-Industrial Society, and so on"to capture the dominant theme or spirit of an age, or what Germans call its zeitgeist. Beck’s “Risk Society” is just such a label; its intent is to underscore his position that society, in this era of advanced modernity, is dominated by the ubiquity of risks, not only as the dominant consciousness of the age but also as the challenge that threatens to overwhelm societies.

Fear, anxiety and risk:

Fear,anxiety and risks are interrelated within the environmental issues. While fear is a fleeting emotion ascribed to a particular object, anxiety is a trait of fear that last longer and is not attributed to a specific stimulus Studies show a link between anxious behavior and risk, the chance that an outcome will have an unfavorable result Joseph Forgas introduced valence based research where emotions are grouped as either positive or negative (Lerner and Keltner, 2000). Positive emotions, such as happiness, are believed to have more optimistic risk assessments and negative emotions, such as anger, have pessimistic risk assessments. As an emotion with a negative valence, fear, and therefore anxiety, has long been associated with negative risk perceptions. In Bangladesh, most of the people know what is meant by domestic violence such as dowry related violence, child marriage, marital rape or violence, verbal abuse, harassment, humiliation and physical torture (Begum 2005; Hossain, Imam and Khair 2001).

Under the more recent appraisal tendency framework of Jennifer Lerner et al. which refutes Forgas’ notion of valence and promotes the idea that specific emotions have distinctive influences on judgments, fear is still related to pessimistic expectations.

Psychologists have demonstrated that increases in anxiety and increases in risk perception are related and people who are habituated to anxiety experience this awareness of risk more intensely than normal individuals. In decision-making, anxiety promotes the use of drugs and quick thinking to evaluate risk. This is referred to as affect-as-information according to Clore, 1983. However, the accuracy of these risk perceptions when making choices is not known.

Risk versus uncertainty:

In his seminal work Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, Frank Knight (1921) established the distinction between risk and uncertainty. During the period of 2008 to 2010, there were 958 females who became victims of physical torture and 590 became victims of murder. It may be noted that most of the victims of physical torture (366) and murder (244) belong to the age category of 19-24 years. Out of total 590 who became victims of murder, 353 cases were filed against the outlaws. (Source: Redrawn from Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) Documentation Unit, 2011)

Uncertainty must be taken in a sense radically distinct from the familiar notion of Risk, from which it has never been properly separated. The term "risk," as loosely used in everyday speech and in economic discussion, really covers two things which, functionally at least, in their causal relations to the phenomena of economic organization, are categorically different. The essential fact is that "risk" means in some cases a quantity susceptible of measurement, while at other times it is something distinctly not of this character; and there are far-reaching and crucial differences in the bearings of the phenomenon depending on which of the two is really present and operating.  It will appear that a measurable uncertainty, or "risk" proper, as we shall use the term, is so far different from an immeasurable one that it is not in effect an uncertainty at all. We accordingly restrict the term "uncertainty" to cases of the non-quantities type.

In this sense, one may have uncertainty without risk but not risk without uncertainty. We can be uncertain about the winner of a contest, but unless we have some personal stake in it, we have no risk. If we bet money on the outcome of the contest, then we have a risk. In both cases there are more than one outcome. The measure of uncertainty refers only to the probabilities assigned to outcomes, while the measure of risk requires both probabilities for outcomes and losses quantified for outcomes.

Risk attitude, appetite and tolerance:

The terms attitude, appetite and tolerance are often used similarly to describe an organization's or individual's attitude towards risk taking. Risk averse, risk neutral and risk seeking are examples of the terms that may be used to describe a risk attitude. Risk tolerance looks at acceptable/unacceptable deviations from what is expected. Risk appetite looks at how much risk one is willing to accept. There can still be deviations that are within a risk appetite. For example, recent research finds that insured individuals are significantly likely to divest from risky asset holdings in response to a decline in health, controlling for variables such as income, age, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) conducting a representative national survey in 2004 reveals that of all the married respondents, approximately 8.0% were found in the age category of 10-14 years (Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2005:92). Even if the law prohibits, such marriages take place unabated in rural areas of Bangladesh. However, existing law prohibits marriage for females less than 18 years of age and for males less than 21 years of age (Hossian 2006).

Gambling is a risk-increasing investment, wherein money on hand is risked for a possible large return, but with the possibility of losing it all. Purchasing a lottery ticket is a very risky investment with a high chance of no return and a small chance of a very high return. In contrast, putting money in a bank at a defined rate of interest is a risk-averse action that gives a guaranteed return of a small gain and precludes other investments with possibly higher gain. The possibility of getting no return on an investment is also known as the Rate of Ruin.

 Total 1461, a large number of single rape cases (847) occurred while a significant number of gang rapes (504) were also committed during the period of 2008 to 2010. We also observe that out of total number of victims (1461), 217 cases were rape followed by murder and 20 cases committed suicide. It is also important to mention that only 92 cases were filed where there were 217 victims of rape followed by murder.(Source: Redrawn from Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) Documentation Unit, 2011)

Sometimes natural or man made disaster makes  vulnerable situation  within common people .They are all at risk especially who live in urban areas like Dhaka. When disaster occurs, the whole affected population is potentially at risk of psychosocial impacts of disaster. It is not only affected urban areas but also adversely affected rural areas. History and experience show that many are resilient and gains capability to cope well with the adverse situation and come  back to their expected normal life. The psychosocial impact of emergency or disaster to vulnerable populations such as young children, women, elders and disabled are becoming more serious. Mechanisms need to be established to increase the communities’ ability and preparedness.

This demonstrates that as a result of land related disputes (43) and family disputes (30), there were73 victims of acid attacks out of total 224. It is also found that in the age category of 25 years and above, 107 out of total 224 became victims of acid attack.

As communities are the ones directly affected by any emergency or disaster they are the front-liners or the first responders expected to manage the risks of emergencies or disasters. Their actions immediately save lives before humanitarian aid arrives. Thus, community capacity to manage mental health and psychosocial impacts of emergencies becomes even more critical with the rising threat of hazards.

It may be mentioned as reported in the newspaper, ‘The Daily Prothom Alo’ in 2011 (from June 15 to August 15); that 25 females became victims of eve teasing in different places such as while coming back home, bus stands and in educational institutions such as schools, colleges.

Rabeya victims of Rana plaza disaster openly described her fears for her very uncertain future and resentment for loosing her legs, “Whenever I look at my legs I feel like I am in the dark, there is no light that can show me a way to walk further.

“Gradually he will be unable to do anything by himself. His future is going to be very uncertain. An unproductive man is shameful, and the experience is frustrating,” Nazrul’s father shared. , “Look at my body, how can I expect that my husband will carry his disabled wife for the rest of his life? “I have to survive, that is what I know”, it is understood that she is trying to cope with the situation and has not given up.

However, some develop significant psychological trauma, and if not attended in a timely and appropriate manner, the condition might result in long-term pathological disorder. Now, efforts are needed more than ever to come up with a uniform approach and strengthen the level of collaboration and coordination among agencies to ensure proper, on-time and quality services are offered to communities before, during and in the aftermath of disasters.

Conclusion:

The above discussion on risky society in Bangladesh, particularly domestic violence, poverty ,prostitution, malnutrition and natural disaster give us a brief understanding of the problem. It is found that different types of violence against women are increasing. Recently eve-teasing has become a serious social problem in the country. In order to solve this increasing trend of violence against women, proper intervention strategies need to be undertaken. Existing laws regarding protection of women’s rights should be enforced effectively. Law enforcing agencies need to handle the situation with sincerity, honesty and with strong commitment without any hesitation and bias. Awareness and capacity building among the women are also important. Under the existing social values and norms, males’ attitude and behavior towards females need to be changed as well. In this regard relevant agencies of the Government, NGOs, researchers, lawyers, activists and media need to come forward and work together for advocacy and campaign for the betterment of  our country to mitigate such problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

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