Her mother is a maidservant and her father too sick to work. Now 11, she weaves in and out of the traffic, tapping on car windows, beseeching passengers to buy roses and kathaltapa. But the fumes and the dust, the danger of moving vehicles, the risk of being molested, frequent arrest by the police who demand 200 taka a time, place her in far greater danger than she ever knew in the factory where she worked as a helper, cutting threads and stitching buttons. The risks of living in these camps were described by Beauty, a mother of six children in Islambagh. She said, 'There is sickness here.
Children suffer from chest infections, coughs, asthma.
There is danger in the water we drink, diarrhoea, dysentery, even cholera. The motorbikes and baby-taxis cause many accidents. We are at the mercy of strong-men and mastaans who extort money. The schools do not function, there are no doctors, the hospitals are filthy. In the rain we live knee-deep in water.