Whole suburbs are given over to the employees of these NGOs, their busy offices, the jeeps and cars, the logos and apartments at a level deemed suitable for charitable expatriates. Bangladesh is an Islamic country in which the majority of the new working class are women. On the other hand, more than 50 are garment-factory owners. Farida, a social worker, says, 'Industrial labour is transforming the position of women in Dhaka, and consequently, all over Bangladesh. We will never go back to domestic submission.
Many women can earn more than men.
The government do not know what they have started, by taking us down this road. Women are gaining confidence. The sensibility of the people has, like the city, been transformed by industrial experience. Rehna Begum, radicalised, embittered by her life in the factories, is 38. Coming from a poor family in Madaripur, she did not go to school, but helped look after her younger sisters and brother.