“It’s been 12 years that I have been familiar to them; not only as a photographer but also as a brother. Whenever I go there, they run towards me calling out “Akash Bhai!” They bring me sweets, tea and speaks and talk a lot about their dreams. These girls are weak from lack of affection.  I once treated them as sisters so now they have granted me the honour of being their brother. No one knows the story of these faceless girls who are sold by their boyfriend, husband or parents. This is a one-way journey to a brothel; a place that is everything to them. By documenting them, I would like to spread their stories of pain which are only locked in each of their own madam’s castle. I recall one girl from those uncountable faces. Unsurprisingly – and despite her name – Asha, she isn’t very hopeful about her own future. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get married nor have children,’ she says. ‘No one will marry me. If they did, they’d only keep me for two or three days, and then they’d sell me back.’ She is more streetwise than some of the other girls here, many of whom share a tragic dream that one day a knight in shining armour will arrive to carry them off; then they will marry him, have his babies and love him forever. I wish there would be a knight in shining armour arriving, to carry them out from this living hell! I do wish this.  I really wish it!” – GMB Akash

Sharing 10 souls and heart melting stories of 10 sisters who work as sex workers in different brothels in Bangladesh.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

I came here eight years ago because once I believed in love and married the man, for whom I became a prostitute. My husband of one year brought me here and sold me to this brothel for money. For the last 7 years I have had to work here to repay that 30 thousand taka,for which my husband sold me here.

I used to call our madam ‘Maa’. She is very generous to me and loves me like her daughter and for that I got the chance to repay the money and leave here. She allowed me to go back to my former life. Last year, with thousands of dreams, I went back to my village to my parents’ home, but nobody accepted me; neither my parents, nor my family members, nor the villagers. They didn’t allow me into my own home nor into the village because they think I am a dirty thing now, they said, “even we don’t eat that food when it falls down to the ground.” Some people were saying, “we never take back the dirt from our dustbin!” I cried the whole day and night till the next morning sitting beside my home, but no one cared and they were looking at me with hatred. But you know, when I saw my husband remarried and living in the same village, I came back to my ‘maa and my Hell.

At least this Hell allows me to live: to survive, to eat, to have space where I can sleep at night. Here I don’t need to see that cruel hatred for me in the eyes of my loved one_ Nilima

I never wanted to be a mother in my life. My grandma was a sex worker; my mother is a sex worker, so this is not an exception for me. This is the oldest profession of our family; this is a chain that is ongoing. I have wanted to break this chain all of my life by not becoming a mother. But you know what? It’s very hard to stop the cycle of nature! I saw all of my mother’s pain being a sex worker. I saw how she felt standing in the same alley with me searching for customers. I know how it feels sharing the same customer who would sleep with your daughter the next day. I saw her attempting suicide in our room; fortunately, she survived.

I never wanted to be a mother but when I realized that I was pregnant, my mind changed tremendously; I didn’t want to kill my child. Everyone told me to get an abortion but I could not do it. Our madam pressured me for an abortion but I was protecting my baby with all the energy I had. Madam called the Babu, who used to come to me the most and who had once promised me that he would marry me! She told him that this might be his child and that I could blackmail him anytime! Babu beat me ruthlessly and tried to force me (to abort from his beating OR to have an abortion) but I convinced him to stop by embracing his feet and begging him for the life of my child. I signed a contract and assured him that I will never want anyone’s name for my child.

Becoming a mother is not an easy task in these brothels. Lots of women have died because of improper treatment. I had to battle a lot every day with pregnancy sickness and at the same time, I had to attend to my target customers. Some people are very ruthless and ill minded; they like pregnant women for their own indulgence and entertainment. I prayed to God for a baby boy during the whole period of my pregnancy but it’s a girl again in our family. God didn’t listen to me. Everyone is telling me this will happen again. But I am determined to get her out from this Hell. After all of this, I am not deterred from my goal; I will break this woeful chain. If a mother wants a good life for her child, nothing can stop her_ shopna

Everyone says we are bad women because we do this work; because we are sex workers. Yes, you people are right. I have never seen someone doing prostitution as a hobby in our community in my life. No one choses prostitution as a hobby. But I have seen a lot of people who have wives and family come to me for fun to indulge themselves. I was born here and started my job at the age of eight. My mother tried a lot to send me somewhere safe. She cried day and night to send me somewhere else away from this brothel. But our madam didn’t permit it because I was in such demand for a lot of clients from the beginning because of my age and youthfulness. It’s very difficult to work in front of your mother but here luckily, every woman learns the trick to kill your soul and become a dead body.

I wait hours for my clients and during these hours I have nowhere to sit. I need to stand for hours and do bodily movements and use vulgar slang in order to get a client. I look so skinny so last month my madam started giving me some tablets that make me look fat and sexy. Men choose young and healthy workers because they complain that old workers are depressing. Getting a client is also like winning a battle because I have to compete with other workers and reach my target: ‘8 clients per night’. But when I get a client it is a mixed feeling as if I have won the battle but lost at the same time. I make my living and buy my food by selling my body and dignity.

Because I have to stand the whole time, for hours my leg hurts badly when I go to sleep. We can’t take an extra minute for eating, bathing or even using the toilet. If you are late for an extra minute you will get some slaps for a bonus. We can only get some time for sitting when we put our makeup on. It feels exhausting after finishing my target every night. I get such a small portion of food that even after finishing my full meal, I feel hungry all night. I never have seen a family in my life. I wish someone would marry me so that I could have a family. – Maya

I can recall the first incident of sexual harassment in my life. My mother and I were used to learning the Quran from our Moulovi every evening after finishing all our work. That evening my mother fell asleep because of her sickness so I had to sit alone with him to learn my Arabic lesson. Suddenly I was feeling uneasy. I felt that he was touching my right hand in a bad way. Although I was only an eight-year-old girl I could understand the bad vibes of his touching. I was shaking in fear and started feeling like something was stuck in my throat. I held my tears and ran to our washroom and started washing my hand with soap like a mad girl. I washed my hand for the next two hours nonstop crying relentlessly until my mother made me understand that this will never happen again.

I came here because I am a misfortunate woman; if it was not my bad luck then how can I lose both of my parents in a rail station? There was one porter who found me and he helped me to search for my parents the whole day and then waited til dusk. But I found no one; I never found them again just like I never find my luck. I lived for the next few days with the porter family who found me but his wife never liked me. She started fighting with him about me every single day. The last evening in that home she handed me over to her brother and he brought me here. It all happened like the worst possible dream I was having and it was happening in my life.

The first day, I did not allow my client to open my dress. He got so angry and tried so hard that he tore apart all my clothes but he could not manage me. After that incident my madam beats me miserably and for the next three days she forced me to sleep naked and locked me without food in a room. On day four I got my food and a new client but I didn’t get my clothes back for several days. After that day I accepted my fate. I accepted men in my room and in my life. But I could not accept men in my soul. Maybe that’s why I feel like I’m being raped every night several times. It feels I can no longer live this life for one more day and be raped by a stranger in exchange for money and a living.

Every single day I am passing in this dark hell only with the help of the cheapest drugs provided by our madam. Now I don’t wash myself anymore because no one is here to tell me this will never happen again. I don’t cry because no one will tell me to stop crying and hold me to her chest tightly. Now I am learning to die every day_ Ovagi (unlucky)

It’s been a long time I want to go to a very green field. I have never been in any green field. But I really want to go. I have a disease, I cannot breathe behind a closed door. I also cry while I laugh, I can’t control. It’s causing a lot of trouble to our mother. Our mother is our madam. I assured her I will be okay very soon, I will only laugh, will never cry. How I came to this brothel, I have no idea; I was too small to remember anything. But my only problem is, it’s very difficult to breathe here. Also I have no memory of any person; I do not see any face when I close my eyes, I feel all alone. Girls used to say they have no one too. But I tell myself, I must have someone, somewhere, may be a mother, a father or a lost family. I never had anyone to remember. So I try hard to remember a face, just any face, and there comes no one. My friend, Prinyanka usually wipes off my tears very quickly before I ruin my makeup. She always reminds me, makeup is costly than my tears. She told me that one day we will go to a green field, she will take me there and I will breathe as much as I can. Only I hope, on that day I will be able to see someone when I will close my eyes. At least once in my life, I want to feel that I am not alone.
– Afsana

It has been ages since I went out of these four walls. These dirty walls are as colorless as I am. Light has never been able to enter my room or my life. The windows are too narrow for that. I helplessly scream in pain but my voice never reaches anyone, not even myself. Everyone sees me smiling because no one ever pays attention to my eyes. Even after all these battles, I remained a fancy girl. I ask people to bring me flowers, only those which has no fragrance. I never look in the mirror because I was never capable of looking into the eyes of this girl; this girl crying within me. I was sold by my husband for 3000 taka. I laughed a lot when I found that out how cheap the price of my love was to him. For me, the price of my love was very high, and I’m still paying for it. Sometimes it’s very hard to breathe. I want to dry my tears under the sun, or maybe get wet in the rain and let my tears flow with it. But where should I go? Who should I go to? No one waits for a prostitute. I cannot go anywhere. Now, I try to trust the lies, try to smile, and try to sell my love at good price. – Asha

I am a liar. All my life I lied to myself. Whenever my heart shows me the truth, I beautifully lied to it. It’s very difficult for me to tell you the truth. I am also feeling nervous because I want you to show how strong I am, I do not want to show the dumb girl living inside me. I was sold when I was in my mother’s womb. They traded me before I was born. I was a born prostitute. I never had any friend, family or lover. No man looked into my eyes, or held my hand with love. But you know something; everyone needs someone, someone to love or someone to hurt. And I have no one. I sold my heart in the cost of lies without regret of suffering. Sometimes I feel, the time has stopped and I am sitting in the same place for ages. One day, I fell sick, very sick and I was taken to an old doctor. I was shivering in fever and started crying for no reason when the old man called me, ‘Maa, what’s your problem’. At the end of the prescription, he advised me to avoid things that are allergatic. I supposed to leave, but I was aimlessly sitting there. Then he asked me again to tell if I had something else to say. With great fear I asked him, ‘Sir, I am allergatic to love and lie, but that’s my life is all about, do you have any remedy?’ After a few minutes, the old doctor stood from his chair and blessed me by touching my head. That was the first time in my life someone touched me with respect and care. – Rubi

I did not want to kill him. I wanted him to be in my life. I knew that if anyone could find it out, they would kill him. But I was able to hide him for many months. Then sometimes in morning when I went to sleep I asked myself why to punish someone by bringing into my life which has no hope, no tomorrow. But he was the only one with whom I talk like a child without being afraid, without being someone else. He also responded in my stomach like a butterfly by assuring that he will never leave me.

The day my madam found out I was pregnant; she wanted to kill my child. She was trying to kick me and I held her legs. I screamed, begged her to give me a chance to live. I did not leave her feet for how long I cannot say; then she stopped pushing me and asked me why I wanted to bring lifetime suffering. She left without hurting me anymore.

Then the time arrived. During delivery I had eclampsia and severe blood loss. Through the entire time I did not stop talking to my child, I whispered to him that we had to make the journey. Till then we survived many miracles. He was then three months old, his only favorite thing was bird. But we were caged; I was not able to show him any bird. We had no room and I had to go back to attend clients. With every passing day, I was afraid that one day my boy will hate me most. But whenever I looked at him he always smiled by assuring that all I had is him.

He was three months twenty days old when I handover him to a childless couple. They were crying after holding my baby. I looked from distant; felt he was in the right hands. My madam requested me to keep Murad, told me that I won’t survive without him. But my mother heart felt Murad will be happy with them than me. When they were leaving, the woman came to me, put a packet of money in my bag and said they will keep his name Murad, they will not change it. I said nothing. Then the man came closer to show me Murad for the last time. Told me that when he will grow older they will bring him back to me and if he wants to be with me, they won’t stop him. I looked at my child, he smiled to me like always. I said, ‘Never tell him, his mother was a prostitute. Never let him to search me. He should never know he was born in a cage. I want him to be a bird, to fly in the sky, if you can, helps him to do that.’ I returned their packet and was able to come back to the brothel without looking back; I do not want my child to smile at a prostitute. – Momota

My uncle sold me in the brothel when I was nine, that time I was innocent. A type of innocent that I had no idea what is the difference between a mosque and a brothel….

A few days ago I was not in a mood for love, when my client was promising how much he loved me and how badly he wanted to take me away from this living hell to his beautiful heaven. With promises he kept telling me how badly he wanted to marry me; I was not up for drama that day, I just secretly dial his wife’s number from his phone. Then I continued to listen to him attentively, for solid thirty minutes in pin drop silence. When he asked me how I felt about him, I handover his phone and told him to ask his wife..

Yes, I am badass woman, I smoke, I sing, I dance. I’m tough and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, it’s okay. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself, which is enough. Now excuse me, your attention won’t pay my bills.
– Princess Lucky

I had a very bad habit of falling in love with people whenever they showed me some love. I never get any love from anyone; I don’t even remember my family members or where I come from. I get nothing except extreme torture to my body and humiliation from people during my whole life in this place. I have fallen in love several times with a lot of my Ford customers or with whoever showed me their love and some compassion for me. Lots of men promise me that they will marry me and give me a family and then cheat me with money and flee never to be seen again. Though I know men cannot be trusted and they have broken my heart so badly but somehow I believed them and fell in love again and again. I don’t fall in love anymore. Now I know love is not for us. We prostitutes don’t belong to ‘Love’. People don’t think of us as human beings; how could they possibly love us?

For the last week, a strange middle-aged man has been visiting me. He was holding a bag in his hand with different sarees and machine-made blouses every day. The first day he came with a red bridal saree and asked me to wear it. He showed me a photo of a woman and asked me to put on my makeup like her as much as possible. At first, I laughed at him but after seeing his seriousness, I tried to put on the makeup myself following that photo. It was a very funny experience for me. That man sat with me the rest of the night but said no words and did nothing to me. That night was a very uncommon night for me. Then the next day he came with another ordinary saree and asked me to wear that one. With hesitation, I asked why he was doing these kinds of strange acts every night. And I was not prepared for his answer. His wife fled with someone else after their love marriage and he never married again after that incident.

That day he told me a lot about himself and his story and we fell asleep together. For the last week he has been coming every night for the whole night only to sleep beside me. I don’t know why I am feeling worried. I think I fell in love again with that strange man. I have been waiting the whole day for him and for when it will get dark and my strange man will come. I am waiting for him, brother. Last night was a very bad night for me. I didn’t sleep the whole night waiting for him but he didn’t show up. I am eagerly waiting and wishing that he will show up tonight_Ontora

From the beginning of my career I have been working for those people who are living on the edge of society. When I started working with these people I surprisingly discovered that – life has taken all colours from them, but they are still cherishing every moment of their life with colour. Colour is their courage; colour creates enthusiasm for them to fight in order to live for another day. A person, who has nothing, has colour in life. In the beginning of my career, I took all black & white photographs of those who were colourful.  I found out poverty, sorrow and depression become vivid if I skip colour from their lives.

Sharing a few of my colour works and the people who always inspired me to become a colour photographer as well as to live a colourful life.

Presently, I have been working in colour. A street child, a labourer on a road or even a homeless lady – all of them have colour. People who are fighting everyday to live life are heroes to me and these heroes represent colour. Their skin tone, their clothes, their living places all are colourful and powerful. They are deprived from all happiness in life but yet they are treating themselves with colour. While I discover the truth I learned to capture the mood of colour on them.

By capturing these colour moments, I have learned that –a few hints of red, blue and yellow gives inspiration to our lives. People who are fighting for survival without anything in this world are healing their pains by indulging in colour.

An estimated 693,000 Rohingya have been driven into Bangladesh (as of April 2018). Over half of them are children who have fled following an extreme escalation of violence, with most now living in flimsy plastic tents in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar. When hundreds of thousands of terrified Rohingya refugees began flooding onto the beaches and paddy fields of southern Bangladesh, it was the children – who made up nearly 60 percent of their number – who caught most of the attention of many people. The momentum and scale of arrivals make this the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. Over 1,400 children have arrived by themselves after witnessing the deaths of their parents and loved one. Today, there are an estimated 720,000 Rohingya children in Bangladesh and Myanmar, in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection – and looking to the outside world for help.

Children deserve to grow up in a world free from fear, surrounded by those who love them—enabling them to live life in all its fullness.  The world would be shocked by seeing the conditions that the children living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar are facing, instead. Make no mistake that this crisis is a children’s emergency. These children’s worlds have been torn apart brutally. They have gone suddenly from living in a community where they know the neighborhood, having close friends, a routine, a good variety of food and safe places to play to a chaotic, overcrowded and frightening unknown place. Many are orphaned and lost, living in a perpetual state of anxiety. After all this, we cannot expect Rohingya children to overcome the traumatic experiences they’ve suffered when further exposed to insecurity and fears of violence in the camps. But at least we can pray and ask for help for these children’s safety and a better future.

Sharing here with you some heart-wrenching images of Rohingya children who have experienced unforgettable misery, violence, pain and anguish in their short lives. These images will melt your soul forever. Alone, distressed, terrified but hopefully not abandoned by the world at large.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

Heroes are not born but they become heroes by their acts and deeds. A Hero is someone to whom you look up to when you are in trouble; someone who always bails you out of your troubles with a smiling face. There are still some good people left in this world who fill this planet with goodness, optimism and hope; people who make this world a better place to live in. Anybody can be a hero. Someone who helps an old lady or a small child cross a busy road or someone who earns coins for the sake of their mother’s medicines or someone who labours hard for his daughter’s food and education are also all heroes.

Yes, I am telling you about ‘The heroes of our time’; the heroes of our everyday lives and their journeys helping us with every drop of their blood and sweat in order to make our daily lives a little easier. Most are people who are performing acts of kindness or helping others and expecting nothing in return. Many have known defeat, suffering, and struggling yet they possess beautiful stories in their hearts; stories which are worthy enough to share with the world. Abdul Razzak, Fruk Mia, and Nurun Nabi are ordinary rickshaw pullers whose stories touched everyone’s heart. Their kind and heroic acts made them ‘heroes of our time’.

Here, I am sharing 10 real life stories of ‘Rickshaw pullers’ that have become the inspiration for thousands of people all over the world.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

It is very hard to drive a rickshaw with just my one arm. But I can’t stand to see my family in hunger and I want to continue my children’s education. I can’t manage to drive more than 4 to 5 hours each day with one hand. I can only save very little after paying the rent for my rickshaw. Sometimes I have so much pain because of trying to balance the rickshaw single-handedly!

Just 12 days before the accident that took my arm, I came from Sherpur to Dhaka to earn my dream. I left my two children and my wife Kohinur at our village. It was Monday night and it was scorching hot even during the middle of the night. There was not a single leaf moving. I was sleeping in my rickshaw van after an entire day’s work. It was around 2 am and suddenly a loaded vegetable truck smashed into my van and my left arm. After that I can’t remember anything for the next 25 days. I heard that the butchers from the closest market took me to hospital. They paid for my operations! My wife had to sell her earrings, the only gold jewelry she had as well as the two cows we bought with our 3 years of savings.

When I came back from hospital, my only fear was how to feed my children. I am so grateful to God that he saved one of my arms and did not let me end up begging. God gave me courage to continue doing hard work and pulling this rickshaw._Deloyar Hossain (36)

It became dark suddenly and started raining heavily with strong winds and lightning ! Everyone was running here and there for shelter and searching transportation. I saw an old lady almost soaked with rain requesting rikshaw pullers to take her, telling them she had no money but she needed to go to Sadarghat. Everybody told her rudely to go away. Nobody was interested in taking her in their vehicles without money. Seeing that, I told her to come to my rikshaw. I took her and pulled her to Sadarghat. After arriving there she started crying. She said, “I heard my grandson is severely sick but I have no money at this moment to pay for your rikshaw ride. You saw how I was requesting a ride from everyone but nobody agreed to take me without money. I don’t know how to repay your kindness!”

Every day I help at least one person who has no money but needs to go to some place. Every night I give a ride to some disabled beggar to their home for free. These are the beggars who have nobody and who are very poor. I never say no and I never take money from them.

I don’t take money from people who are in a critical situation because one night my daughter, Fatema, was very sick and I had no money at that moment. At that time I used to work as a day labourer. I asked many rikshaw pullers and taxi drivers to take me to the hospital but nobody helped me. Nobody gave us a ride because I had no money. Covered only with a polythene sheet I walked 15 km to the hospital alone holding my 5-year-old daughter during that rainy, windy, dark night. That night walking all the way I was just thinking one thing: that I will at least help one person everyday who is helpless like me.

After that incident I started riding rikshaw and I never say no to anybody who has no money. After my work every night till midnight, I search for people who need help. I don’t know that my small effort will help people or not but I know that at least they will not feel helpless for that particular moment _Faruk

It always felt bizarre to me when my mother sent me to go to door to door asking for salt, chili, onion every day. It was almost impossible for us to cook without collecting spices from neighbors. Believe me, when I used to ask them for salt sometimes, from their looks it felt like I was asking for their heart or kidneys. Why shouldn’t they react? They were also poor and they knew that I had no ability to return their salt and chili that I was taking from them almost every day.

My mother is really old now. She is having a lot of physical problems. I drive a rickshaw the entire day so that I can manage to send her 4-5 thousand taka in money every month for her medicine and food. Between my jobs I try to pray for my mother 5 times every day. I never skip my prayers to God for my mother. My father died and left me along with my four other sisters when we were very young. I have been working the last 20 years for my family. I used to make only 15 taka a day when I was merely 9. I wished to grow up every day. I wanted to grow up in order to earn more money for my family. I have given marriages to my two elder sisters and my two younger sisters are going to school. I wake up every day at dawn for morning prayers and it helps me to drive the rickshaw for some extra hours and with that extra money I try to help with my sisters’ education. I could not go to school but I am trying my best to fulfill their own expectations for reading and studying as much they want. For that I can work every day some more hours.

I have nothing without my mother. My mother is everything to me. I visited my mother last month and took her a green saree. She loves wearing the color green. She never told me she loves green. But from the very beginning I have been seeing her wearing green sarees. You can’t imagine how happy she was seeing that saree. Her condition is not good at all. I don’t want to lose her too. She is the only umbrella over our heads. I always pray to God to please take me before her death because I might not bear the pain of losing her. – Nurun Nabi 30.

Last year I had a strange passenger in my rickshaw who was very worried about something. He was roaming around from one location to another in my rickshaw like a distraught and insane man for almost two hours. I was very afraid to ask him what the problem was that he is going through? I am a poor uneducated man and he was in a very bad mood. Finally, I discovered when he started to talk on his phone that his wife was in very critical condition in the emergency room. She needed the group type A- blood as soon as possible, otherwise it would be very difficult to save her life. After some time when he dropped his phone, with hesitation I softly asked him, “Baba, would you mind if I ask you to take my blood? I tested my blood last year for an illness and I am aware that I have the same blood type A- that you need for your wife. I am a very honest person with no bad habits and I pray 5 times a day. My only problem is that I am a poor man. Do you have problems taking the blood of a poor person and would you let me give my blood to your wife?” That man, whom I was feeling very afraid of asking a minute ago, started sobbing uncontrollably holding me closely. He hugged me so tightly that I could feel how broken he was at that moment.

I gave my blood at the emergency room and it took 2 hours for everything. But during those two hours I felt like a very special person to everyone as well as to myself; something I had never felt before. That man didn’t ask me if he could give me money because he didn’t want to buy my blood; rather he asked me if he could call me ‘Father’. I never felt so precious and valuable before that moment. Giving my blood that day changed my view of seeing my life as a poor inferior man. I don’t feel poor anymore knowing that I have the same blood to save a rich person’s life_ Abdul Razzak

Poor people like me have no rest in their life; no retirement. Our lives are miserable. We have to work even just before going to the graveyard. If I will not work even one day my whole family have to suffer for that whole day. I am 65 years old and for me now riding rickshaw during this heavy rain is very difficult work. Sometimes my whole body gets wet even though I wear a plastic coat. At those times I feel so cold that I can’t breathe nor even stand-up. When it’s raining with heavy winds then it’s even more difficult for me to pull the rickshaw because I need a lot more energy to drag the rickshaw through the wind. My plastic coat protects some parts of my body but my face, hands and feet get wet all the time. My hands and feet get so severally cold that they feel bloodless and numb. 

I don’t stop riding rickshaw during the rain because at that time some passengers give me extra money. Yesterday, a father was looking for a rickshaw with his daughter for going to school for a while. There was no rickshaw on the street because it was raining heavily. I was sitting in a tea stall’s shed beside the stove to warm myself up. I was very tired and cold. I was not able to ride anymore that morning after getting wet from the early morning rides. But when I saw they are getting wet and waiting for a long time, I could not stop myself even if I was already so cold and weak. I took them to school and the father and daughter were so grateful to me. When I reached the front of the school, the girl took a 500 taka note from her father and gave it to me and told me dadu ( grand father ) buy something for yourself. I took iftar and bazar for my family with that money. 

During this Ramadan I still need to work. And I cannot be fasting. I was fasting during the first Ramadan. But my wife and two daughters never miss their fasting nor prayers. If I will fast I will not be able to work and earn for their Sehery food. I hope Allah will forgive me for my sacrifice and will grant my family blessings for their fasting and prayers_ Borhan Uddin

We always wanted a daughter. But we have three sons. I often told my wife only fortunate have daughter. I am working as a rickshaw puller for more than thirty years. Most of my passengers were bad tempered. They always scolded me. One morning a father hired me to take his daughter to the college. He requested me to be careful in the road. He told his daughter to hold the rickshaw tightly. Before we left he told me to go slowly so the girl may not get hurt. On our way after sometime I heard the girl was crying insanely. I tried to look back and wanted to ask her if everything was okay. She scolded me and warned me not to look back. After a while she asked me to stop and started calling someone by her phone. She was screaming and crying all the time.

I understood she supposed to escape from home with a boy. He did not show up. Suddenly she jumped from the rickshaw, left the money in the seat and quickly went to the train line. I was about to leave, felt sorry for the father and thought it may be good not to have a daughter. But I was not able to paddle further; I heard her father was requesting me to be careful. I parked my vehicle and ran for the girl. She was in the rail line, moving like a sick person to harm herself. I went near to her and requested her to go back with me. She yelled at me, called me uneducated stupid, in between she kept crying insanely. I was afraid to leave her in that empty place. I let her cry, as much as she wanted. Almost three hours we were there and rain was about to come. Before the rain starts she got up and asked me to bring the rickshaw. We did not talk about anything. In the rain I paddled quickly. I dropped her near her house. Before I left she stopped me and said, ‘Uncle, you should never come at my place again, never tell anyone you know me.’ I lowered my head and returned to home. That day I did not talk to anyone, I did not eat anything. I told myself it was better not to have a daughter. After more than eight years, very recently I had an accident. I was kind of senseless. Public took me to the hospital;. When I got back my sense I saw the girl was working near me, she asked me how I was feeling, why I never went to meet her. It was hard for me to recognize the girl in white dress, in spectacle and stethoscope. My treatment went well. I was taken to a big doctor. I was listening to her telling him, ‘Sir, he is my father’. The old doctor told her something in English. Then she touched my injured hand and replied him, ‘If this father did not support me in the past, I won’t be able to become a doctor’. I was lying in a narrow bed and tightly shut my eyes. I cannot tell anyone how I felt. This rickshaw puller has a daughter, a doctor daughter. – Bablu Shekh (55)

Papiya asked me to leave before she become weak to leave me. She told me to go somewhere, where she will never be able to come, or find me again. None of us cried. We knew that was the last time we were seeing each other. I moved from my neighbour’s village silently. I walked very slowly to remember everything of my life. I and Papiya used to go to school together. The field I was passing was the place where one day I fainted after seeing a snake. Papiya was always brave, she took that snake in a stick and throw into the water. I laughed a lot by thinking about all those stupid things. Both of us are very poor. Many days, our families are unable to eat anything other than rice. During flood we starved countless days. And then Papiya was chosen by a rich family, she will be able to take care her siblings and sick mother after her marriage. I wanted to be selfish, I wanted to tell her to come with me and fly somewhere. But then I could not. I wanted to see her happy even at the cost of leaving me. When I explained her how much I wanted her happiness, she did not respond. She only asked me, ‘is that the suffering of food is greater than suffering of love?’ I was silent and when I saw tears in her eyes, for the first and last time, I lovingly touched her cheeks. It’s been six months, I am in the city, riding rickshaw and sleeping here and there. Papiya is married and gone far. In this life, I will never be able to love someone as like I loved her. When we were giving SSC exam she gave me an amulet so I never feel fear. This is the only thing I tied in my hand and carry all the time. We promised that we will never meet each other again, we will never talk. Half of the year has gone. She will never know that in my mind every second I am talking to her. I talk to her, question her, laugh and cry with her. It’s hard to stop this, it’s hard to forget. – Rafiq (19)

If I had not started pulling a rickshaw in 2014 for the first time in my life, my education would have stopped at that point. I started driving a rickshaw when I was in class eight. Now I am doing a diploma on Textile Engineering of Garment designing in Dinajpur.

This time I came for ten days to drive a Rickshaw during Eid festival time. During this Eid festival people pay a little more. After earning 10 thousand taka in 10 days I will be going back and continuing my education. I need 6000 taka for each semester and 4000 taka for other expenses for my education. My institution gave me 60% waiver when they came to know that I am driving a rickshaw to support my education.

I am the only one from my entire village who came to Dhaka to drive a Rickshaw to pay for education. In the beginning my friends were laughing at me all the time, but I made them understand how important my education is and after my graduation I want to be a textile engineer. My friends are so proud of me nowadays and two of them want to follow my path to continue their education.

My mother worries about me a lot, after I came to this big city. My mother calls me several times a day and keeps asking me what I eat, what I am doing, which makes me so weak and fragile. I sometimes feel like going back home for my mother. That is the reason most of the time I keep my mobile phone switched off so she can’t call me and I can be stronger and continue the rest of the days.

Yesterday was Eid day and I worked until late at night, I missed my parents so much. This is the first time I passed my Eid without my mother. This the first time I could not touch my mother’s feet and get blessings from her after returning from prayers._ Akheruzzaman 18

My mother always hid something from me. I also tried to find out what she was hiding from me. In village when we went to any function, people pointed at me and talked to each other by saying how unfortunate boy I was. When I told that to my mother, she cried nervously and asked me what I came to know. I said, ‘nothing’, then she hugged me and asked me never to believe anyone. Whenever she spoke those things I felt very afraid and assured her I will never believe anyone. One day I heard my father fighting with my mother for spending money on me. He blamed her for being a bad woman, blamed for caring for a child whose mother left him. That day I came to know, I was three months old when my biological mother left me. My adopted mother brought me at home without any ones support. When my mother knew that I heard everything, she cried a lot, she took me on her arms and told me that she was my mother, asked me not to believe anyone. I was ten years old, only understood I was the problem for my mother; Only understood everyone believed I was an unfortunate boy. After some days of that incident I flew from my village.

When I arrived to the city, I was just ten. The place, it’s people and my life was strange to me. When I was crying by sitting alone in the bridge, Falan, Sumon , Jewel called me and let me to sleep with them. During first night I cried a lot, no one stopped me and some cried with me too. I did not cry for the mother who left me, I cried for my mother whom I missed every minute, even missing now at this moment. I cannot forget her, she is always here, in my heart. Every year I go to visit her. No one else likes to see me except her. When I enter in the house Ammu holds me like I am a little baby. I feel awkward and tell her not to love me this much. Last time she cried a lot, told me how much she prays so I can find happiness and love. I told her I have found enough love. I have friends who have no one just like me. We earn and spend together; we fight during day and sleep on each other’s hand at night. I have my own family now, a different family, where we do not have to tell anyone who is our parents or where do we belong. We just have us and enough love. – Raju (17)

Encounter the 10 most outstanding examples of women full of courage, strength, dignity, kind hearts, fierce minds and brave spirits. As you will explore and travel through the cities of all these women, you will know how hard their lives are, yet they smile in trouble, gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.

In these stories, you will meet some fascinating, heroic and relentless women who each possess a beautiful story in their hearts which is worthy to share with the world.

Presenting 10 real-life stories which will melt your hearts and inspire bravery in yourselves.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

My life has always been grim since childhood.Throughout my life I have drank more tears than water but I never gave up. I never complained to God for anything about my life! I was always grateful that at least I am alive! One of my hands and one of my legs became paralyzed because because of typhoid fever when I was only five years old. I lost my father and mother at a very young age. I had survived alone since childhood by breaking bricks with my one good hand.

When he proposed to me to marry him, for the first time in my life, my heart beat rapidly. I could not refuse him. In my 25 years of life, no one ever said a word of love to me. I never thought I could have a family. I almost accepted my lonely life. I asked him why he wanted to marry me? He said, “I love your courage!” We got married! He became everything to me! I gave him all I had. After three months of our marriage, one morning I found out that my husband , Younus, disappeared with my trunk and all of the money that I had been saving every day for the last 15 years for my future. I never thought life could be so very cruel! I lost everything along with all my beliefs in people.

I kept asking myself. Why would a man live with a woman who cannot do anything with her one hand? Who cannot even cook, cannot wash cloths, cannot do anything for him? I stopped working! I lost all my courage and hope for life!

But I never complain to God for anything! I keep praying to God to give me some courage to continue my life! I started working again and started saving again for my old age. After three years, one evening when I was coming back from my work, I saw a 6 or 7-day-old girl crying in front of a dustbin. I ran there and I couldn’t stop myself from holding her on my lap with my only hand. She stopped crying on my lap and started looking at me like she knows me. There was no one around but I was waiting there in case anyone came for her. But in my heart, I was only praying to God, “Please God, don’t send anyone to take her from me. Because at that moment I had already started dreaming of my life with her.

While returning back home, I was kissing her cheeks and I was whispering in her ear,“Nothing will happen to you. I am not leaving you, my child.” I had already become her mother from my soul.

For the last 15 years she became my courage. She became the mother of this paralysed woman who had been abandoned by everyone in her life: the woman who drank more tears than water during her life.
I was never alone anymore for the last 15 years. My daughter, Tanjila, became my hope. When she calls me, maa, I forget all the pain I have! When I see her face, I forget all my tiredness! She is in class eight. I save all my money for her education. She always tells me, “Maa, after finishing my studies I will never let you work again!”_Halima

Love is a lie. He lied to me; a lie I believed.Do you know what is the rarest and hardest thing in this world? Giving someone a second chance! I couldn’t give it to Someone loved more than my own life! But I can’t say to anyone that I have no one. I always lie that I have everyone. I feel shy telling people I am alone. People think I am a bad woman when I say that. They think I am bad that’s why everyone left me. But the reason is reversed. I left everything behind and choose this lonely life. My neighbors think I am an insane woman who works nonstop like a machine and doesn’t talk to anybody.Furthermore, they always see me crying. I was not like this before. That is for him That I have been crying for the last 15 years. The man who used to say, “You look beautiful when you smile!”

He was my neighbor brother. From childhood we grew up together. We used to play in our lush fields and used to fly kites together. He used to take me to the village fair. Swimming in the pond was an everyday activity for us. He was my best friend for everything. I used to steal puffed rice and mangoes from my mother’s cupboard to feed him.

Everything was going well till I became a young woman. No one let us be together anymore. One day I escaped from my house to see him. My father and brother caught me at his house and beat me so severely that I felt all my bones were broken. I vomited blood. My father said, “Love is not for the poor” I didn’t listen.

The next day again I went to him and we ran away from our village. We came to Dhaka where there was nothing except us and our love in our small hut in a slum. We Told no one where we were. He started a job in a textile mill. I was working the whole day as a maid. We used to wait all day for the night to see each other.

Everything was going beautifully for the next 3 years. Then one day a coworker of my husband told me my husband got married with a girl from the textile mill where he worked. They rented a room in a nearby slum. I couldn’t believe my ears. In the evening I went to that slum with the coworker to see with my own eyes. The whole the way I was praying that what I knew was a lie; I didn’t want to see him there. But I saw him entering that room with a bag in his hand. I couldn’t stand up anymore. I couldn’t find any strength in my legs. Everything I was seeing was blurry. My heart was crushed inside my chest. I don’t know how I returned home that evening.

Coming home I cried like a crazy woman the whole evening. But I cooked for him for the last time. When he come home late that night I gave him warm rice and his favourite dish fish with potatoes. I waited till he finished and asked him while looking straight into his eyes, “Do you love me?”

His eyes were saying everything. He tried to lie again. I told him to leave this home. He started crying. He wanted to hold me. I couldn’t look at his face for the last time. I left the room in the one saree I was wearing and started running.

I have been here for the last 15 years staying alive and trying to forget the memories in order to survive and surviving in order to forget him. I couldn’t show my face to my family again. Brother. I didn’t make a mistake by loving someone, but I made the mistake of loving the wrong one_ Nuri Begum

We five sisters are the heart of our father. I am the third child of my father and he thought I was very useless. But I know he loves me the most because I am very fond of him. After marrying off my two elder sisters, my father only had me to rely upon for keeping his money safe, preparing betel leaf for him, giving him the towel when he goes to the shower and every other household chore. My other two sisters were very young. My father used to search for me by calling out, “Where is my tail?” This is because he thought he is the ‘body’ and I was the unbreakable useless part of him, ‘the tail’.

But I had to leave my ‘body’ one day. That day, when I went to Dhaka in search of work and money, leaving ‘my body’, I didn’t cry at all. How could I cry? My responsibility was more important to me than crying.

I remembered that oftentimes in our family home before going to sleep in our room, I used to hear my father telling my mother with his mellow voice, “I wish we had a son then he could earn money for us. I am getting older and sicker day after day. Who will take care of you all?” One night he started crying loudly and said, “My daughters have become my pain and my main burden now. How will I arrange marriages for all of them? I am a poor farmer.” That night I cried the whole night; the whole night I could not sleep. I promised myself that I will take all the responsibilities of my family. I promised I will never get married before I arrange marriages for my sisters and give a better life to my parents.

I started working at Dhaka in a factory and sent money to my father every month for my family and tried to save some money. During those years my father tried to marry me off. He used to make up various issues to call me home. Every time before going home I used to shave my head so that the groom would not like me.

I left Dhaka after 3 years and bought three milking cows with baby calves and started farming at our house. In our village no girls herded cows or goats. Everyone started talking nonsense about me but I didn’t listen to anyone. Why should I stop? I promised myself that I will prove to my father that if you give opportunities and inspiration to a daughter, she can do anything that a son can do.
In the next four years from the six cows we then had 14 cows and 4 calves. I sell milk every day and cows every year during Eid season. My two younger sisters started working with me. On my farm now 3 other girls are also working from our village.

I built a new house for my parents. I took my mother to Dhaka for her eye operation.

My father is very proud of me nowadays. He always keeps telling everybody of our village “daughters are blessings. I am fortunate I have daughters. They are mothers in your old age. If you believe in your daughters, they can do anything. You don’t always need sons for being proud and privileged but you do need a daughter like my Rotna .”- Rotna

Every day is hard for women who work for feeding their families but last Monday was the hardest day of my life. Nothing was going well from the early morning that day. While I was going to my textile factory it was raining continuously. For a woman it is very difficult to get into a bus on such days. Somehow I managed like everyday but I was almost completely wet. Though I was wearing a pelisse,everyone was looking at me. I was trying to protect myself with my extra sheet that I always keep in my bag for protecting myself in such difficult situations so that I can hide myself from a lot of cursed eyes. After two hours of protecting myself, I reached my work place. Then that afternoon suddenly my husband called and informed me that my daughter is burned badly and he is taking her to the hospital. It was not possible to get leave instantly but I requested to my manager and he granted my leave. But when I went outside it was still raining badly.

I tried for more than an hour but could not manage a bus. Then I thought to take a CNG (taxi) and took one. Taking a CNG is very expensive for me, someone who works as a day labourer in a textile factory, who only earns 7000 taka per month. But there was no other option for a mother like me when her child is in an emergency room in a hospital for the burned.

The CNG driver made my day even worse; a day of hell. He was looking through the mirror every single second. He was trying to see me through my wet dress even though I was wearing a veil. The look was so very vulgar. It felt like someone was raping me with his eyes. His face was full of marks of cuts with blades or something. He looked dangerous and I was very worried because I don’t know the road on which he was taking me. All the way I was just waiting for when I could get out from this hell. He was looking at every woman who was walking down the street! I couldn’t do anything and was waiting helplessly to reach my destination. I promised myself that I would never again take a vehicle alone even if I were dying of an emergency.

It was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life but as a woman in Bangladesh I have to face this kind of situation almost everyday, several times everywhere. All the men look at us like we are a piece of meat only and nothing else even in this month of Ramadan! These men maybe forget they also have mothers, sisters and daughters at their homes too! They forget when their women go out they also face this same problem. Everyday returning from work I cry to my husband that I have to go to work the next day and be subjected to those eyes again. _ Salma

It’s very hard to believe in life again after getting betrayed from your own blood and the person you loved the most. Ever since I have understood life, every inch of my soul has suffered in grief every single day. After the death of my mother, my father took me here and left me. He never thought about how I could survive alone at the age of six! I don’t know what the reason was why my father had to dump me here in this boiler. After that no one came here to see me again. I don’t know if anyone from my family even knows where I am, or if I am alive or dead. I was living with an 80-year-old lady who was also suffering from loneliness in the last days of her life. I used to call her ‘mother’. She died when I was only nine. She always used to say, “You are an angel and God sent you to me so that I don’t have to die without water in my mouth. God knows about our suffering, he even knows the suffering of those little ants!’’

After her death, when I was badly wanting to save my life from the storm of loneliness, God became the umbrella over my head. I got married with a beautiful man that year. He became my parents, my friend and my family. My life became dreamlike for the next six years. Then one day he said he was going to his village to see his parents and would return very soon; but he didn’t. I don’t know where he is now! I never knew where his village was. I don’t know if he is alive and having a family life or if he is no more! I am waiting for him and cannot give his place to anyone again; I didn’t get married again after that. Several times I thought he betrayed me; several times I wanted to kill myself. At the age of 15 I had already lost all hope of living my life contentedly anymore. But I was a very cowardly woman and I could not kill myself. I could not do anything.

After 10 years of working here I went to search for my village and my family but I could not find anything. How could I? I don’t know where my village is! I only know I am from Barisal and my father brought me here on a launch.

After the hopeless search of my village and family, I returned on the launch back to this place. I had been sleeping on the deck of the launch and in the morning, I suddenly woke up from a soft touch on my body. Opening my eyes I saw that everyone had debarked from the launch and a beautiful baby was searching my body for milk. I took her on my lap and started searching for her family. Besides me and some launch crew, everyone had left the launch already. I searched for her family desperately and waited the whole long day by the launch in case anyone came to take her; but no one showed up. I never wanted for this kind of abandonment to be repeated that I had experienced as a child. I know the pain of life without a family. When the two-year-old baby was crying, I was also crying with her hysterically that whole day.

After that day my life changed again and that crying baby became the center of my life. I became a mother. I worked every day taking her on my lap or on my back. I have spent my last 10 years with her every second. I did not let her go anywhere I couldn’t see her! In my empty life she was the only light. I got her after losing everything and then finding her and having a new life. I know the value of being loved. Everyone leaves me; now I am very afraid of losing her again. But I also know now that she will give water to my mouth during my death._ Julekha

I don’t want to complain. No complaints. Life can’t always be a bed of roses. Life is not like that always. My childhood was a dream. I was an obedient child and a good wife. After I got married my husband had given me lots of comforts. I never had to work for anything. I enjoyed a life of affluence.

My husband was a very brave man. He was the Sardar from this village. That night when everyone was praying in the mosque to save the dam from breaking; he went with his pupils to save the dam with his spade. That night I fell to his feet crying and hugging his legs. I begged, “Please don’t go”. He made me understand. Everyone went to mosque to pray to save the dam but they forgot what god had said! God said, “You try, I will give it.” I am going to try!” I let him go. But he couldn’t return. The flood waters swept everything away with my fate. I lost my husband and that night my life changed drastically!

After that night I worked very hard every day my whole my life for my family. I helped my parents and my parents-in-laws in every possible way. I did everything I could for bringing up my kids. My children have married and have gone away. I have no one now, now A days I feel very lonely.

They send me money every month. I have no problems of food nor clothing but I need somebody to talk to. My jaw gets stuck sometimes nowadays! I have no one to talk to nor anyone to take care of me. There is an old woman beside my house and she comes over sometimes to cook for the two of us in exchange for food for her. My elder son promised me four years ago that he would take me with him to his home but during the last Eid when they came here they again left me alone. I said nothing just like the last 3 years. You cannot believe the difference that it makes when I just hear somebody’s voice in my yard.

Loneliness is very frightening. It is very frightening for me sometimes because I don’t know if I am going to fall and be left alone, or if something is going to happen to me andI will have no one. Suddenly I feel very worried even about walking in this yard alone. In people’s lives it’s very important to have somebody to talk to and to care for you in your later years.

I sometimes wonder how my children will breathe without the person who gave them their first breath? When they come home again for the next Eid, will they notice when they arrive that there may be no one to greet them at the door?

These dogs are the only companions of mine. I feel happy for them. At least they have each other._Joreda Begum

I wish I could die! What will I do with this life without education and hope? How I will fulfill my angel’s dream! How I will give my angel a comfortable life without education? My mother is my angel! My mother worked her whole life like a slave from our childhood to continue our schooling. My father works in a local factory, with his tiny income it is always difficult to feed our four-member family.

My mother did all kinds of work. She worked as a day laborer on other people’s agriculture land, she worked as maid but she never let us stops our learning.

My whole life I dreamed and I prayed to God that when I will complete my education, I will do a job and I will take care of my parents. I will fulfill all my mother’s wishes. I never saw her wearing a pleasant dress or eating something good. I never saw her taking a pause from nonstop work for us! Her whole life she was only anxious for our future!

For the last two months, we have been begging to everyone for my admission fees for my H.S.C. But nobody came forward to help me.All my friends received admission in the college after completing the SSC . But I am the only unfortunate one who could not manage the admission fees! For the last two months the whole the time my mother keeps telling me, “Maa don’t cry! If we don’t have money how we can continue the rest of your education?”

How can I make her understand! Every moment I am not crying only for my education! I am crying for my dream, my wish that I have cherished since from my childhood! That I will give a comfortable happy life to my mother after completing my education!_ Anika akter

Six months ago, my elder sister returned to our home from her husband’s house bleeding and crying in the middle of the night. Seeing this condition I got very afraid and could not sleep for a single minute whole the night. My father was very angry with my mother because of this situation. My mother said nothing but continued crying silently as always.

The last couple of months we have been facing one danger after another. My immediate elder sister and I used to love to go to school. But now we can’t go to school anymore since last one month. I already understood that growing up is a curse for girls, because the danger grows as girls are growing – neck and neck every day. I don’t want to grow up anymore, I am very afraid of growing up nowadays and becoming a woman. Everyday I pray to Allah, and say that I do not want to grow up. But Allah will not listen to me I know; I will grow up. I have to grow up like my sisters. For the last two months I had to leave my school because of my safety. My immediate sister used to get molested by one of our school teachers. She had to leave school because last month something very bad happened to her. She was crying hard in front of my mother, but my mother shared nothing with anyone. When my father learned about this he stopped us for going to school. I am not at all sad about his decision, in fact I’m very happy. Now I don’t have to tolerate hundreds of hunting eyes every day on the road or I don’t have to tolerate inappropriate touching while sharing a small bus for going to school with other people.

Now, my sisters and I are working here in our own bangles factory which is beside our home, so we feel safe here. I have been seeing from the very beginning of my life that whenever we had to go to outside of our home my mother always recites suras and whiffs our chests in order for us to avoid bad looks and behaviours. Last week she slapped me so hard. I only asked her, “then why does apa gets molested at school when you whiff us every day?” My mother cried severally after slapping me holding her chest and said, “What can a mother do, without relying on God for her children? You will see the results of having daughters one day, just believe in God!”_Moriom

My husband left me on a stormy night when my five-year-old autistic daughter was fighting for her life.Several times she was in pain asking, “Ma, can you do something? Ma, take away my pains.” I couldn’t do anything. I was crying loudly sitting beside her and asking my husband to please do something. My husband said he was going to bring medicine. My younger daughter started crying to go with him. He didn’t take her. He said he was coming back soon. We were waiting for him the whole night but he never returned again. I know why he left us. He couldn’t take this poverty and our sick daughters anymore. He always wanted a boy. He got lost because he wanted to. After that everybody started looking at me like the fault was mine. People were bad-mouthing me. This and the loneliness and guilt were all drowning me. I couldn’t take anything anymore either. I decided to commit suicide. That afternoon when everyone was working outside in the field I put a noose around my neck, hung it on the fan and swallowed a full packet of my daughter’s sleeping pills. I could not think of anything but to kill myself. I don’t remember how long it took me to pass out, but I do remember those last moments of my consciousness. My life was flashing before my eyes, and I started imagining he returned home bringing medicine for our sick daughter at my wake.

Suddenly the thought hit me; my autistic daughter! What will my daughters do? How will they survive without me in this cruel world? It was at that moment I realized that I wasn’t ready to leave this world like this; I couldn’t leave them like their father left us. I thought this would forever be the story of a defeated mother and a helpless woman’s life, nothing more. At that time, I started struggling to get the noose off, but by then I had lost all control. I woke up in a central hospital the next day. My neighbor said he found me senseless on my floor and I am lucky that the rope tore by itself. I really felt lucky to be alive for the first time in my life holding my daughters on my chest tightly. I do believe that God has given me a second chance do something good.

After that day I never thought about needing a man, a husband in order to survive and to take care of us. My failure became my greatest weapon after that incident. My failure allowed me to change my life and focus on the good. Now I work the whole day in the field and then at night I cook in a hotel. I take care of 3 other old women who are not blood-related but connected by fate. They were also abandoned by their families and live with me and my daughters now. My one daughter is now 8 and the other is 5 years old and goes to school. Every night 8-10 child workers who work with me in the field and who call me ‘Ma’ come to eat dinner with us with what I brought (leftover) from the restaurant where I cook.

Every person has a story behind their changing but not everyone’s story is beautiful. Mine is ugly but I believe everything happens for something good. He wanted to get lost. I let him. I have no complaints so I Don’t search for his address anymore._Asma Begum

Prostitutes don’t expect love in return from anyone. I also don’t expect it. From the very beginning of this life we learn how to live life without being loved back. But for the last 14 days I have been feeling very compassionate for this sick monkey…. I feel that he is far better than any social human being I ever met. This innocent creature even understands love and compassion and can love you back.

I bought this monkey from a street magician two weeks ago because he was looking so sick and the magician was forcefully making him dance and play. It was hurting me so badly that I started quarrelling with that man and wanted to buy his monkey. He was not agreeing to sell his money-making monkey. But I was also not a girl to let the poor monkey suffer. So the man asked for a big amount of money and he thought it would make me leave him because I am a poor prostitute. I told him to sit for a minute and without thinking for a second, I took all my money from my trunk which I had accumulated in the last 3 years making my blood into sweat so that I could get rid of this hell.

I finally could save my baby monkey. Everyone laughed at me and called me crazy but no one will ever understand the satisfaction that I feel. I am feeding him healthily and taking care of him for the last 14 days to make him well. I decided I will leave him in a jungle far from this concrete jungle. I know a prostitute can never be free and live her life in the society of the good people but I believe this monkey can live happily in his jungle_ Beauty

‘Heroes of Life’ – are those incredible humans who always find their way to light and love. They had known defeat, suffering, and struggles, yet they possess a beautiful story in their hearts, which is worthy to share with the world.

Sharing 10 real life stories which will definitely melt your heart

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

During my whole life I kept my mouth shut to be a good woman. I accepted my fate and all those abuses my entire life but I never could forgive myself. I was ashamed of myself but I couldn’t tell anyone; when at the age of 4 my mother’s own brother used to touch me in bad ways. My mother believed him and even gave me to him to take care of. I couldn’t fight back when my father’s cousin raped me while coming back from school at the age of 5. Crying in pain I told my elder sister. She said, “Do not tell anyone; people will call you a bad girl!” I couldn’t tell my father that the rickshaw puller he reserved for me for my safety to take me to school put his hands in the wrong places when he helped me to get down from the rickshaw. I Told my mother about it and my mother changed the rickshaw driver but she didn’t share it with my father and told me not to share it with anyone. She said, “People will call you bad!” I never could complain to anyone when my school teacher used to touch my back. I could never forget all the abuses that happened to me. I never used to go in front of my uncles when I became a young woman ever again. I was scared of every man in my life.

Every woman dreams about their wedding and their husband. I was also not different from them. But all my dreams were crushed badly as well as all my expectations when on my wedding night I got raped again by my own drunk husband. Even I couldn’t say anything when he brought his friend to my room one night for money. During my pregnancy I used to pray to God, “Please don’t give me a girl because I know she will have to go through all these things I have been tolerating my whole life. But I became the mother of a girl 10 years ago. I never let her hide from my eyes for a minute. I took her everywhere. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when that night my husband brought a man into my daughter’s room. I started yelling and screaming insanely. All my anger that I had been carrying my whole life came out as my greatest strength. I couldn’t control myself and took the dagger to stab my husband and the man. They both ran away. I complained to the police and for the last year my husband has been in jail. People call me a bad woman. They say that to me because I had my husband put in jail. I don’t feel shame, rather I feel good when they call me a bad woman. It took 32 years to gather the courage to become a bad woman and shout out for my respect and my dignity._Nazma Begum

Last year I had a strange passenger in my rickshaw who was very worried about something. He was roaming around from one location to another in my rickshaw like a distraught and insane man for almost two hours. I was very afraid to ask him what the problem was that he is going through? I am a poor uneducated man and he was in a very bad mood. Finally, I discovered when he started to talk on his phone that his wife was in very critical condition in the emergency room. She needed the group type A- blood as soon as possible, otherwise it would be very difficult to save her life. After some time when he dropped his phone, with hesitation I softly asked him, “Baba, would you mind if I ask you to take my blood? I tested my blood last year for an illness and I am aware that I have the same blood type A- that you need for your wife. I am a very honest person with no bad habits and I pray 5 times a day. My only problem is that I am a poor man. Do you have problems taking the blood of a poor person and would you let me give my blood to your wife?” That man, whom I was feeling very afraid of asking a minute ago, started sobbing uncontrollably holding me closely. He hugged me so tightly that I could feel how broken he was at that moment.

No one has the time to listen to these unfortunate children who are mostly unseen humans. I always wanted to deliver their voices to all of you and show you their hidden pain and anguish. I tell their stories, depict their emotions, and steal their sorrows into my frames…  If any one of you spends even one second in a thought to help them or even to pray for them, this in itself, is the reward of all my hard work.

 If these stories ever touch your hearts, please feel free to share them. Even your help alone can awaken other people to bring their hands to these lost souls…

_Gmb Akash

Sharing 10 real life stories of unfortunate child labourers who were born to work. Feel your heart melt…

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

No, I don’t go to school nowadays. I had to choose between school and food for feeding my mother and little brothers. My father died last year in this same factory from a heat stroke when he was melting iron in the fire place. In this intolerable heat no one can work if they are not accustomed to it. He was a very strong person and was used to working in the heat. He used to work a lot for us. No one believed he could die here from this heat. After my father’s death I got my father’s job here. I use the same hammer and the same machine but I don’t feel strong like him. I feel very tired, sleepy and hungry. I miss going to school, I miss playing with my friends I miss swimming in the nearby river. My father used to buy me colorful ice cream when we used to feel hot. I miss eating ice cream every minute nowadays when it feels hot like hell here. I have one uncle who buys me ice cream sometimes and helps me in my work when I can’t do anything. I want to become like him. I want to reduce people’s misery because my ice cream uncle always says “we need each other.”

_Rony

We come to work at 7 am. Because of working continually, we do not usually notice when it becomes dark outside. We work in darkness, under the yellow lightbulb. Sunlight does not enter our factory. Sometimes when the electricity goes out, we can go outside, but now we do not like to play anymore. We feel tired. Telling you the truth, we become very hungry at 3 pm, but rice is expensive. Our income is 1000 taka per month; how can we spend any for rice? We enjoy this free bread at lunch time; when you are hungry everything is delicious. We do not feel full after having it though. But after returning home in the late evening, mother will give us yummy hot rice with mashed potatoes! It’s good for poor people to eat once a day. Please take a piece of bread sir, it is not that bad.

_Ador, Shohag

My father died in a road accident 6 years ago which left us on the street. For several days we ate nothing. We had no money and no rice at our home. We could not pay the rent of our one room house. My mother then started working in this brick breaking factory after only a few days of my father’s death. She was not even physically and mentally ready after losing my father. Her eyes were still wet for her loving husband. I saw her crying every night holding my younger brother.

We had nobody else. My father and mother had a love marriage so their families did not accept them. They came to Dhaka in order to survive and my father started riding a rickshaw. But after my father died, my mother alone could not earn enough money, even when she worked from early morning to evening. I saw how she suffered every evening with her body pain. I could not stand to see her struggle alone and I started working with my mother when I was only 6 years old.

My mother cried loudly holding me on her chest the first day I went to work beside her. She never wanted to take me with her to work there. My father always had a dream to send me and my younger brother to school.

I could hardly break 30 bricks a day and could only earn 30 taka on the first day. But now I can break up to 125 bricks and earn 125 taka per day. With my income, I am able to continue to pay for my younger brother Rana’s education. He is a very good student and this year he came second in his class.

For the last 6 months I have been working extra hours to earn more money. Two days ago with this money I bought a new bicycle for my brother, so he can go to his new class and tuition with the bicycle. Before that he used to walk a long distance and he got tired. My brother said when he grows up, he will get a job and he will never let me work here anymore.

_Rotna and her mother Rina Akter

My mother died a week ago. I do not have her photograph. She wanted to take picture many times but for taking picture you need money. If you come here a week ago I could take you home to my mother. She won’t let you come back without having lunch with us. Whenever someone came to visit us she always had given her portion of food. My mother had three pet cats and only me. No one went to her since she was sick. Every day after returning from work my father asked her why she was not dying. I have seen her dying every day since I was a child. I have a step mother and two step sisters. But my mother taught me to love them though they hated us always. The day my mother died I did not cry. I was happy, happy by looking at her face because she was smiling at me. My mother often used to say when I cry she feels ache in her heart, so I cannot cry; I cannot let my mother soul suffer a bit

_Ador (12)

After my father died in a road accident, it was impossible for our mother to manage three meals a day for us. She started working as a maid but still it was not enough money for us to survive.

One day my mother brought me to this factory for work but the owner did not want to take any more children into his factory. But my mother sat with me the whole day outside of the factory for this job forme and kept requesting the owner for a chance to live. Then he gave me this job six months ago.

In the beginning it was very hard for me to work the whole day with these big machines. Sometimes I had problems with this machine noise and I had problems breathing because of the dust all the time. I also had many accidents. A few days ago my hand went inside the machine and I was seriously injured. Today I am back to work again. I cannot just sit at home, I have to help my mother.

Now I am working as an apprentice. I get three meals a day here for my work. After a few months I will get 1500 taka per month. I am eagerly waiting for that day. I want to help my mother. She works so hard from early morning to late at night for her three children. I want to reduce my mother’s burden of poverty.

_Maruf

There is a Shakib who is the caption of our cricket team and he is a favourite player. There is another Shakib who is a superstar of our Bangla films. My name is also Shakib but I work in a factory from early morning to late evening to earn 500 taka a week for my family.

I have been working in this factory for the last five months. During this period of time I have been working as a trainee, so I don’t receive any salary. The owner of the factory only gives me 500 taka per month for food to eat three times a day.

I don’t have a father; my mother works as a maid and she cannot run our family alone. That is why my mother sent me to work. When I grow up, I will start my own factory. For that I am working attentively to learn this job

_Shakib 12

During the winter it’s very difficult for us to work in this underwater stone mine. Its takes an ability to hold one’s breath a very long time to go down into deep cold water and collect these heavy stones and come back. Sometimes it’s harder because the stones are heavier than I am. Oftentimes, I can’t even breathe when I enter the water as it is so cold that it will freeze your body in just a few minutes. But we are accustomed to that now! I don’t know how I have been managing for the last 40 days working in this area.

There are many children who are working in this industry. This is the only job here for poor people like me. Thousands of men women and little children are working day into night.

I never thought I could do this work when I first came with my neighbour. For the first few days, I only collected a meager amount of stones and earned only a little money. They pay for every stone you bring from the deep cold water.

Now I have learned one important thing in my life: “Poverty teaches you so many things and makes you so strong that you can do anything when you have a hungry stomach.”

_ Parvej

Will you beat me if I tell you the truth? Actually, I am a potato thief. My mother has a high fever so she can’t work. My father had a second marriage and then threw my mother and me away from our house. My father had beaten up my mother so badly that she cannot move properly any more. We somehow managed to sit on the roof of the train and came to Dhaka five days ago. We sleep on the footpath. From morning to afternoon I try to steal potatoes. If I manage to steal some potatoes or vegetables then I can sell them in the bazaar and get 50 taka to buy food for us. From yesterday afternoon till this evening, we haven’t eaten anything. I still cannot steal anything today. I am very hungry

_Mofizul (7)

I always feel hungry; all the time I only think about some white rice. I only feel less hungry when I am busy at work thinking I have to earn a living and feed four mouths. The last six months my father has not been able to work anymore because he lost his hand while he was working at the mill. He was the only earning person for the four of us.

After that accident I had to leave my school and join this work for feeding myself and my family. My mother wanted to go begging but my father did not allow it. He said “I will die before eating the rice from begging”. I have one sister she feels hungrier than I do nowadays. She always wants to hear stories from me about food. Last night, when she wanted some rice from my mother, my mother replied to her; “Girls should not ask for rice in this way”. I don’t know what the 5-year-old girl understood but she went to sleep eating nothing. She did not ask for food from my mother again.

I understand how hunger feels; I could not do anything without crying silently. The whole night I couldn’t sleep because my stomach was grumbling for some rice too. At dawn for some moments while I fell asleep, I remember I was dreaming about a bowl of rice that I was eating so eagerly. For the last two days our work has been closed so I could not earn anything nor buy any food for my family. Today I am working rapidly. I did not even take a break at lunch time so that I could earn a few more coins to buy more rice and maybe some potatoes. I promised my sister this morning that we will eat a lot of rice tonight. She might be waiting for me the whole day. I am also waiting to finish my work and go home. My father used to say; if you want to eat and earn a living, you have to give your sweat and your blood. He has given a lot of blood for feeding us. Now I am trying to give all my sweat to feed them at least once a day.

_Arif hossain

My sick mother cannot eat anything. Nothing tastes good to her except beef. She can only eat well if she gets beef in her lunch. I do not have enough money to buy beef for her. It is very costly. But that will not stop me from buying beef for my mother. Every day I get 10 taka for my evening snacks. All children buy bread with that money. But I save my six day snack money by not eating anything. With my savings, on the seventh day, I always buy a half packet of ‘Tehari’ (rice stuffed with beef) for my mother. When she eats it in front of me and says, ‘Babu it’s delicious!’ I feel my stomach is full of all the good food of this world.

_Babu

Always the same heartless scenario; working children suffering and my own reaction of inner emptiness that freezes my finger preventing contact with the shutter button. But even with all those sorrowful expressions followed by smiles when they give a look, these courageous children push me to overcome anything and then my camera clicks never stop.

– GMB Akash

Caste and occupation-based discrimination remains one of the most severe and forgotten human rights abuses of the twenty-first century. Many groups who face this type of discrimination are identified as untouchables and have taken on the identity of Dalits. Dalit” is a Bengali word which literally means “someone trampled under the feet of someone else”.

 It is used to identify an outcast minority of oppressed, exploited and deprived people. Dalits in Bangladesh face various forms of discrimination and challenges due to their social status. There are between 5.5 to 6.5 million unseen Dalits in Bangladesh.

 The majority of Dalits are usually very poor leading a hand to mouth kind of existence. As an excluded community, they continue to work in some of the most menial, low paid, and dangerous jobs in the country, such as cleaning toilets, sweeping streets, and emptying the septic tanks of others. Sometimes they face severe forms of human rights violations, including abduction, rape, torture, threats, intimidation, as well as the destruction of their houses and eviction from their land.

Despite all the difficulties in their lives, these marginalized people still dream of a better future. Perhaps they dream of a day when their children will not be judged based on their birth identity but on their qualities.

Every day we walk down the clean streets but we never look back and think about who keeps the streets and sewer systems clean. They are the most unseen people. No one listens to their silent cries. I always wanted to deliver their voices to all of you and show you their hidden pains, struggles and anguish.

To do that, I have been visiting Dalit communities all over Bangladesh for the last 4 years and collecting their stories. I have been documenting their everyday lives through my lens to shed light on the suffering of these marginalized people.

I am sharing now some of the real-life stories of these unseen people, whose lives continue with silent weeping…

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

I was not born cleaner. I was an innocent kid who would vomit in bad odor. No one from my family ever was a cleaner. But now I have spent seventy years of my life by cleaning filth and dirt of others. I started doing this work to save my family from starvation. The day I started working as cleaner my whole family’s identity was turned into one name ‘Cleaner’s family’. My mother was called cleaner’s mother. In these seventy years, no one ever told me that my work is important or I am important. I have noticed people do not look at me as a human, they do not do eye contact or come very close, and they do not let me to sit inside their house. For everyone I am just a sweaper or cleaner. No one ever asked me, how it feels to wake up in the morning and without having any breakfast just go inside the pile of filth or gutter.

When my mother was very sick, one day I burst out in tears to her and asked for her forgiveness. She asked me why I was asking her to forgive. I told her that because of me for decades she was addressed as a cleaner’s mother. I humiliated her because I was not able to become a mechanic or even a labourer. She touched my head and told me that I have already become someone that no one can become. She told me, only few people can clean other people’s dirt by becoming dirty and the incredible one can do that for family. She told me how proud she is because I gave her food that comes from pure honesty.

After my mother’s death, I continued to do the same work I was doing, cleaning filth. One day I found a gold chain and I quickly hid it before my coworkers saw it. When I was returning home I was clean and tidy but that chain was inside my pocket and I was feeling all over dirty. I could not eat that day and thought how that gold chain can change my destiny, my life. I planned to give it to my sister in her marriage, I planned to sell it and start a business, I planned everything I could plan in my wildest dream but I could not sleep peacefully for the first time in my life. After a few days I sold the chain and took the money. The money was with me for nearly a month. I could not sleep peacefully for a single night. The day before Eid festival I was sitting in the local shop of my slum. A boy arrived there and begged to the shopkeeper to give him some rice so his family could have something to eat during Eid day. The shopkeeper scolded him and he walked away. I was seeing him weeping and going to home.

At night I did bazaar for the poor families of my slum with the money I had. I spent every penny. Everyone was surprised and asked me what had happened. I did not lie to anyone but did not tell the truth too. When I went to sleep at night I was poor again, a poor cleaner on his mattress. But I was able to sleep that night and dreamed my mother for the first time after her death. I saw her very young, in a beautiful saree, She was smiling and proudly telling everyone. ‘I am the cleaner’s mother. My son can be dirty but no one’s heart is as clean as him’.

_Idris Ali (80)

I found out my daughter had an affair with a boy for five years. She never spoke about it as she is always afraid of me. Apart from that, I assumed my children always hated me for the job I have been doing since my childhood. I asked her to bring the boy and his family to our house. I decorated the house like a new bride and bought the best food for them. I have been saving for my daughter’s marriage for twenty years. That day my daughter was the happiest I had ever seen her. When the boy’s family started the conversation they brought out a note of demands. They wanted all the material things a family needs. I was calculating and nodding in agreement with every word they said. After all, it’s about the happiness of my daughter. The last point was that they did not want me to introduce myself in front of their relatives and that I should never go to visit my daughter. The moment they said that, my daughter screamed in anger and by surprising all, she slapped the boy. She angrily said, ‘My father can do the thing that no one else can do. Not everyone can clean the messes of others. I am proud of what he does and if you do not leave my house in one minute, I will beat you all.’ She broke the marriage proposal and ended her five-year relationship in one second. From that day on, I knew how fortunate and happy a person I am.’

_Sweeper Monu lal

Why do you want to take my picture? No one will like me. For everyone I am a sweeper’s daughter. At childhood I used to go to a field near by us, I wanted to play with girls of my age. Their parents never allowed them to play. One day I asked one of the girl why they were not taking me to play. She said, ‘Don’t you know you are a sweeper’s girl?’ I have never gone to that field since then. Do you know what our people do? We clean your dirt, we pure you but for you all, we are the dirtiest people who do not even deserve your two minutes attention. I am sure you are wasting your time, no one is going to like this picture, and by standing outside garbage no one has time to appreciate a sweeper or his girl.

_A sweeper’s girl (that’s what she wanted to use as her name)

I had never seen any love or care for us in anyone’s eyes. When I work people give me a feeling that I came out from Hell.  We cannot sit anywhere to have a cup of tea. People look at us like they look at dirt. There were days when I hid my tears after being insulted by strangers for no reason.  I was sure there was no love left in this world for poor.

Ten years ago, I was working beside a children school. My job was to clean the drain and repair the site. We blocked the road and it was taking a few days. So the children had to walk to their school. I attentively did my work every day without noticing anyone who could again insult my job. One day a little girl arrived, smile widely at me and said, ‘Why are you so dirty?’ Before I could say anything, her father dragged her away by saying, she should never talk to strangers. I felt horrible, imagined he must be telling her daughter how disgusting workers like me were. And then for a week, she came to me every time with same question, why was I so dirty. I never got chance to speak as her father was always there to drag her away. I could not sleep those nights by thinking about a beautiful reply, ‘why I am dirty’. Poor cannot be clean all the time, we are born in dirt, raise in dirt and die in dirt and no one care when a dirty thing left the world. I could not say any of this to her. I wanted to quickly finish the job and never wanted to see the girl ever again.

At last day when we were finishing the work, it was Ramadan afternoon. I was very tired and down. The school was close and the baby girl did not arrive. I felt relieved, packed everything and was about to leave, suddenly I saw the little girl coming to me by running. She could not breathe properly when she arrived. I was waiting to hear the same question, but she did not say anything except smiling. Then I asked her, where her father is. She showed me a car standing far from us. I waited to hear the same thing. And then she opened her mouth, ‘Uncle, do you like red color?’ By bringing a packet behind from her she handed it in my hand. Her father gave horn and she quickly said, ‘I cannot clean drain, but I can help you to be clean. This shirt is for you, Uncle.’ I could not say a word and she rushed when her father gave repetitive horns. The girl left me on tears. She proved me, human still cares for human. I do not know where she is now, what she might be doing. I pray to God everyday, wherever that little angel is, may God clean all dirts from her life.

_Shohrab

I never told my children what my job was. I never wanted them to feel ashamed because of me. When my youngest daughter asked me what I did, I used to tell her hesitantly that I was a labourer. Before I went back home every day, I used to take a bath in the public toilets so they did not get any hint of the work I was doing. I wanted to send my daughters to school, to educate them. I wanted them to stand in front of people with dignity. I never wanted anyone to look down upon them like the way everyone did to me. People always humiliated me. I invested every penny of my earnings for my daughters’ education. I never bought a new shirt, instead I used the money for buying books for them. Respect is all I wanted them to earn for me. I was a cleaner. The day before the last date of my daughter’s college admission, I could not manage to get her admission fees. I could not work that day. I was sitting beside the rubbish, trying hard to hide my tears. All my co-workers were looking at me but no one came to speak to me.

I had failed and felt heartbroken. I had no idea how to face my daughter who would ask me about the admission fees once I got back home. I was born poor. I believed nothing good can happen to a poor person. After work all the cleaners came to me, sat beside me and asked if I considered them as brothers. Before I could answer, they each handed me their one day’s income. When I tried to refuse everyone; they confronted me by saying, ‘We will starve today if needed, but our daughter has to go to college.’ I couldn’t reply to them. That day I did not take a shower; I went back to my house like a cleaner. My oldest daughter is going to finish her University very soon. Three of them do not let me go to work anymore. My oldest girl has a part time job and the other three of them do tuition. Oftentimes, my oldest daughter takes me to my working place. She feeds all my co-workers along with me. They laugh and ask her why she feeds them so often. My daughter told them, ‘All of you starved for me that day so I can become what I am today, pray for me that I can feed you all, every day.’ Nowadays I don’t feel like I am a poor man. Whoever has such children, how can he be poor?

_Idris

I lost my mother when I was very young. I always tried to please my stepmother. But for unknown reasons, she could not even tolerate my shadow. She had beaten me a lot as a child. I used to stand silently during the times she had beaten me. I could not cry, because she told me that if I cried, she will throw me out of the house. After silently suffering all of this violent abuse, one day finally, she threw me out my home anyway. I cried loudly all night while standing in front of the closed door, but not even my father came out to take me back. I came to Dhaka from Chadpur. I used to roam around all the streets and sometimes ate from dustbins. Then one day I got this job; a job of a sweeper. But the sad thing is that everyone hates us and no one talks to us. Today I am very happy, brother, because nobody ever took my photo; no one ever wanted to know if I have something to share. When you tell my story to people, please tell them not to hate the sweepers. If we stop cleaning, you will die. We are your servants; we go into your rubbish. By becoming dirty, we cleanse you. Please tell the people to not look at us with hatred.

_Md. Rabbi (18)

Two global agreements – one focused on the protection of refugees and the other on migration – are in the final stages of negotiation between different governments, under the auspices of the United Nations.  Each offers a rare opportunity to protect migrants from one of the biggest sources of displacement today – climate change.

While the UN recognises that climate change is a cause for migration, countries are under no legal obligation to protect the rights of those affected by its consequences.

Through the following stories and photos, we are taken into the lives of mainly Bangladeshi women who are survivors of climate-induced migration. It is the ultimate display of human resistance.

Over the next few decades, scientists expect 17 percent of the country’s land to be submerged, and 18 million Bangladeshis to be displaced by seas. The country regularly suffers from deadly and devastating flooding, tropical cyclones, storm surges and droughts.

When a land that has been a people’s home for centuries disappears or becomes uninhabitable, through no fault of those who live there, what choices do they have and where can they go? These are questions that the international community currently have no answers for—and that’s neither fair nor just.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

I have always known that ‘water is life’ but this water has been killing us for the last 10 years. This water never gives us any peace. I am from a coastal village. We moved here because of yearly river erosion. If there is a fire in your house, only the house gets burned; the land remains.  But when there is river erosion, everything is lost. We lost everything  six times while living in my father-in-law’s house after our marriage . We have nothing left now. We came here and started life with only a few clothes and took out a 2000 taka loan from my sister-in-law.

Life is very hard here and our poverty is only increasing. We are waterlogged for almost the entire year.  We have thousands of problems here. Which one should I tell you about and which one should I skip? Everyone here is becoming a beggar and only buys medicine for waterborne diseases for their family members. We have to spend more than we earn every day. Every night this slum becomes like a howling Hell.  All the children start crying when they go to sleep because of the pain of their infected feet caused by walking the whole day in this muddy water.  We elderly people can tolerate most pain but the innocent children don’t understand that they are poor and should not cry about pain.

 I came here with only one child and now I have 4 children. My husband is the only worker in our family. I can’t go to work leaving my children here in this unsafe slum.  I have three daughters and almost every day in our slum, girls are getting raped.

For those with only one income earner, it’s very difficult for them to maintain a family and feed six mouths daily. Life becomes painful. It’s as if we are gasping for our last breath every day.  In our village life was so beautiful like in dreams. My children have never seen a village in their entire lives. I sometimes tell them stories of my childhood and our village. They listen to me as if I am telling them fairy tales. They want to go there to visit. But there is nothing left in our village anymore except the name. Now everything is under water. I heard most of my village people moved to Dhaka already. We all know there are two things in this world, ‘Heaven and Hell’. When I was at home in my village with my neighbors and everyone else, I used to feel like I was living in Heaven. Now it feels like we are living in Hell. We have cried so much already, but you know there is no end to our crying.

_Ruby Begum

After the flood, I lost my house for the sixth time because the river eroded. I sold my cattle and everything I had in order to rebuild my shelter last year. This year there was another devastating flood which destroyed my house again, and now staying here is another nightmare. I have no idea how I will manage to pay back all my loans while spending nights in this smashed-up house with my children.  We have been starving most of this last week. We have nowhere to go, no way to cook and most importantly nothing to cook. We live on the bank of the river in the northern part of our country. Now floods come two or three times a year and in addition, the extra water from India also comes when we don’t need it. We live in the flatlands so even in heavy rainfall this area becomes flooded. We can’t grow crops because this kind of sudden flood destroys everything throughout the year. Before the end of one year of trouble, the second year of floods begin to make us suffer again.

I never had any happy childhood moments. From the beginning of my life I have been facing extreme hunger and a washed-up future. At the age of six for the first time, I had to rebuild our destroyed house those nights; when the river took every dream we had. I was never a child again.

Two of my younger brothers died after that incident from diarrhea. There was no treatment. We could not afford to go to hospital. I have seen many deaths and diseases. Some were silent, some were miserable and some were deadly. But nothing is worse than hunger. You can fight disease but you can’t fight hunger.

I am looking forward to joining my husband in Dhaka City.  He tried for several years to make me understand that I had to leave this land and work together with him for a better future for our children. But I never listened to him as I never wanted to leave. But this time I have prepared myself to be strong. I love my land but it can’t meet the needs of my children’s hunger. My land can’t give me a respectful life. This land only can give me heartache every year with its cruelty.

I hope our endless sorrow will end one day. Hundreds of women are leaving here and going to Dhaka. I also want to get out of this open prison, this world of water where I was born, as soon as possible. I want to give my children a better life and I want them to be able to have a childhood. I don’t want them to rebuild their destroyed house again and again with a broken heart. I want them to carry their school bags every day with hearts full of hope.

home with my parents when the flood hit us. Then the river took our land. I grew up during

_ Ashma Begum

My wife is probably not going to live much longer and I am a helpless man and unable to do anything for her. I had to leave the woman with whom I have been living for 50 years alone in that dead drought place. I came here to earn money so that I can send some money to feed her and buy her medicine. I was a farmer with land. We used to have happy and beautiful days before the drought. But now because of the drought nothing grows in our field. The drought killed everything; it killed our happiness and now it is going to kill my wife.

I have been working here for the last 2 years. I never rode a rickshaw before. When I ride this rickshaw everyday it’s very difficult and scary. But I am doing this for my Buri. She is waiting every day for me to come to her so that she can die in front of me. She is very sick and suffering from malnutrition. I don’t earn enough so it’s very difficult for me to bring her here or give her enough money for good food or medicine. She can’t even drink enough water. Where will she find fresh drinking water? She needs to walk for miles to collect drinking water. She can’t walk enough to collect drinking water every day. She lives alone in a drought-prone area on my land. All my family members including my son and daughters have moved from there to Dhaka. But no one took her with them.

We became our children’s burden. My Buri became their burden. Now no one is with her to take care of her or give her a drop of water in her mouth if she starts to die. I can’t even work properly thinking of her. I am so anguished thinking about her and I always feel worried that I might not see her again. I can’t breathe normally when I think of her condition.

I am trying with every single drop of my blood to accumulate enough money to bring her here with me so that she may die in front of me.

_ Rohomot Ali

Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination. I am Bilkis and come from a slum in Dhaka city. I used to work in a factory with my husband. I fell in love with him and I fled here with him eight years ago. For the last eight years I have seen a very different world, full of the hardships of the people on this island. Many times my husband told me he wanted me to return to the city again. But I could not leave this land and these innocent people living in this situation. For the last seven years I have been working to bring changes to their lives, a little at a time.

Every year unseasonal flash flooding and extreme river erosion make people’s lives in North Bengal impossibly miserable. Countless people lose their children and their cattle every year. People of this land live a life of uncertainty. The severity of this is increasing every year. Hundreds of people have had to leave here because they lost their houses, their land and their hope of living without a hungry stomach.

I am the only educated woman on this island.  I wanted to guide the people but rather than cooperating with me, they always wanted to create obstacles because I am an outsider. But I never lost  hope. My husband is always with me. He never interrupts my work and always supports me. He knows that I want to help these innocent villagers deal with nature’s cruelty. Seven years ago,  when I was discussing my dreams with him, my husband said “to help these poor people you need to know about the floods and the current situation. Why don’t you buy a radio?” He sold our only cow to buy the radio. And that one radio changed the situation on our island.

I used to listen to all the news regularly, mainly in the rainy season to stay informed about the flood water so I could warn my neighbors to take shelter in the highlands and save lives. The first year no one wanted to listen to me about the arriving flood waters except two families and that was the biggest out of season flood in the last 10 years. Hundreds of people became poor and had to beg. Many people lost their children and cows. It was a disaster. In the last six years I have had to move our house three times but no one from my island has lost their lives.

Women from this island never wanted to leave here and work in the city, because they believed that working alongside men was a sin. I made them understand that women can work alongside men to survive and to end their hunger. Upon understanding this, hundreds of women from this island moved to Dhaka; to Amin Bazar.

Now everyone from my island, older or younger, admires me and listens to my words. All hard and positive work pays off. I have been providing education to 10-15 girls in my yard for the last five years and gave my radio to them. Together, we made some high land on our island. Now I am prepared to leave this island with my husband and move to Dhaka city because I know now that lots of Bilkis are ready to take the responsibilities of their own land and people.

_ Bilkis Begum

She doesn’t go to school anymore. For us, collecting water is more important than going to school now. We old people used to go to school but this new generation is becoming uneducated. But you know; education only helps when you don’t have to suffer for basic needs like food and water. Now staying alive every day is the biggest fight in our lives.

Every day here in this coastal area we have to face different problems. But the biggest problem is the lack of life saving fresh water. Water is life and we have an abundance of water everywhere, but for a bucket of drinking water we have to travel miles and miles or cross this river. We don’t get adequate sweet water for drinking or to use for ourselves. Our kids are wasting all their time collecting water for their families. We cannot remember the last time we took a shower in fresh water. Fresh water is now the priceless treasure in our lives. I passed my SSC education, but my children are illiterate. Like mine all the children of our villagers are becoming illiterate only because they waste their time collecting water. School will not save their lives when they need drinking water to quench their thirst and that of their families.

We are going to collect water. It takes a lot of time to reach the pond from where we collect water and then we have to line up for taking water from the pond which takes a lot more time and then return home. The pond is also getting drier day after day. Sometimes the owner of the pond doesn’t allow us to take water from there. We have another water source on our island which is a 12-mile walk. Our children are becoming sick and exhausted from collecting water every day from different places.

Only during monsoons can we collect water easily from the roof of our house with thin plastic sheets. But monsoon season is also our biggest fear. Our house is just on the edge of the dam and every night we go to sleep afraid that it could disappear with a surge of water at anytime.

We used to fish in fresh-water and earn enough to feed our family, but now there is nothing except salt water. It comes inland up our rivers where it stagnates. We can’t earn enough money as there are no jobs. Salt water has devoured our place such that we can’t grow anything on our land. We can’t even raise cattle because they too need fresh water to drink. Our income source is low considering the situation of price hikes. I cannot buy any vegetables or meat for my 75-year-old mother or my children. We are becoming the workless and the poor as well as beggars.  Our daily lives became a deserted life after the cyclone. Life seems so helpless here. Thousands of people are leaving this island because of these problems. But I can’t leave my elderly mother and she doesn’t want to leave this land. She would die starving and thirsty here but still she will not leave this land.

_ Hamida Begum

My children ask me all the time why we have to move from one island to another. I have no answer.  I also ask Allah the same question every day. My home has been taken by the river six times. A few days ago, we moved to this island and made our seventh home. On this remote island my husband can only go fishing. Last night my five hungry children were freezing in the cold. To fight the chilly wind we embraced each other and their father kept reciting the Quran. If my husband can catch a fish, we can survive another day.

We fear the future and fight for today. As we are poor we don’t know what we will eat the next day. We had some land from where we used to get some paddy every year. But this year it is now in the middle of the river. We have no hope for paddy or rice this year. Only by the grace of Allah do we not have the problem of drinking water. For many days we have been only drinking water from the river to survive.

The river took everything from us; now we have nothing left. How can I make you understand how we are living our unbearable lives every day? I was once so fond of my village from my childhood, but this cursed land and cruel river is killing me and my family every day. I don’t want to live on this land anymore; not for a single day. But I have nowhere to go; I have not a single penny to move from this cursed land. On this island only two families live with us and they are also surviving like we are surviving; fighting all odds against us.

There is not a single person to help me. I wanted a loan from one of my brothers who lives outside of this town who came to visit us last year. But he refused to help; saying he is also having a lot of problems and he didn’t believe that I could refund his loan! He asked me, “How will you refund my money?” I could not answer his question!

No one believes in poor people, not even a brother from the same mother.

I feel hopeless as Hell nowadays. I have never gone anywhere away from this land and don’t know what I could do to survive with my whole family. I am in the middle of nowhere and finding no way to get out of this problem.

When my children get sick sometimes, except for crying and asking help from God, I can’t do anything for them. I don’t know how many days we can live here like this? How many days we can live hungry and fight this hostile nature and weather. I don’t know how our miserable days will end or if they will ever end or not!

_ Khodeja

How can I possibly make you understand what a big sin I have committed? I don’t know if Allah will forgive me or not but I am sure my child will not forgive me. My family members will not forgive me as I can’t forgive myself. I had to sell my 6-year-old son to a man in order to survive with my other two children and my husband. To save 4 more lives, I had to make the most devastating decision of my life. We had one little piece of land to cultivate that we had to sell 4 years back for very little money. After cyclone Aila, nothing grows on our land anymore so no one wanted to buy it for a fair price. My husband and I, are both used to cultivating fish in our own fishery. That was the only work and income source for us.

But after cyclone Aila, there was no sweet water anywhere anymore. We couldn’t cultivate fish nor grow crops on our only field. Aila took everything from us: our house in the tsunami water, our land, our fisheries, the food from our mouths and even our elder son. This is why we had to sell our son to feed the other four mouths. How many days could we live without food? Day after day we all had to starve. I was pregnant. I remember getting faint after several days of hunger. I don’t know where my son is now! I don’t know what they have done with that piece of my heart. I don’t know if I will ever meet him again or not! When I think of him, I become like an insane woman. Sometimes I feel like killing myself because I feel so guilty. But no one would ever understand the anguish of it if they do not go through having an empty pocket and a hungry stomach. With the money we saved, we managed to move to Dhaka last year. Now I work as a housemaid and my husband works as a porter at Shadarghat. Now we don’t have to starve anymore day after day but we can’t ever sleep happily anymore. Every day before we sleep we regret our loss. We think about our son. My husband cries loudly holding me and my two children. Almost every day we fight and cry before sleeping. My oldest daughter always asks me where her brother has gone. I can’t reply to anyone; instead I try to turn myself into stone again in order to go to work the next day.

_ Hasina Begum

I poured my sweat and blood into building my house. I did it with my own hands. My wife and I worked hard every day so that we could make a home where we dreamed we could see out our days. Our children grew up there just like in our dreams. After so many happy years, one day like a nightmare, the river Jamuna took away our house. We never thought the river could come that close. Now I have only memories and nowhere to live. Isn’t life the most unpredictable thing?

 Everything happened in front of my eyes. We could not save anything except our lives. My wife’s wedding sari, my cherished radio and years of treasured belongings all went into the river. I was stunned that night when the calamity hit us.

That house was everything to me. I was a simple farmer; my life and heart were rooted in that land. But now it is all in the river. Now I have nothing except a plastic shed where seven of us have been trying to make do for the last couple of months. Now even drinking water is a problem because my water tube wall which cost one year of income from my crops, is also gone into the river. Now we drink the river water. We don’t have a kitchen nor a toilet. We cook under the open sky.

It will cost more than two or three hundred thousand taka to build a new home. When I can’t even collect food for my  family to eat, this much money is now a dream. In order for all of us to eat, my children had to stop going to school and have started working as maids in a villager’s house with their mother.

Though I know I will not get to return to my house, every day I come to the riverbank and try to mark the spot where my lost home might be now.

No one is coming to help people like us. It is getting worse every year. It’s a kind of war which has no value for anyone else other than the people who are fighting it and suffering every day for the rest of their lives.

_Shaha Ali

I was a hawker of girls’ cosmetics in our village and married a beautiful happy girl who I fell in love with the first day I saw her. Twenty years before we were married she used to be one of my regular customers. She fell in love with me unconditionally and married me after dealing with a lot of problems with her family.

I am a poor hawker man, who loves his wife and daughter with his full heart, but as people say, this doesn’t fill your stomach. It is very hard for me to see innumerable pins on my daughter’s slippers and holes upon holes in my wife’s sari. I feel hopeless and a failure when I can’t feed them three times a day, when I can’t manage school fees for my daughter and when I can’t buy new clothes for my family for the Eid festival. I couldn’t do anything for my family. But they never complained about anything because poor people get used to it; they know that no one can cope with the power of nature.

For the last six months we have been really worried about what will happen if we will lose our house and land again. Where we will live? How we will continue to survive? We already lost everything four times in the river due to river erosion. We continued to buy land beside the river because it is cheaper.

This last time I intentionally collected more money to buy land in order to make our home away from the river and this village as we knew that the river would again sweep away everything we have and will again show her unkindness.

But nature is more clever than mankind and has bigger plans than we poor people. Last week she took everything we had away again. This time it was so rapid and so much crueler than before that I could not save anything. I could not even grab the money I was saving for my girl’s marriage, nor the money for buying the land on which we were planning to build our home.  I could not save my hawkers box which I have been carrying with me for 25 years; nor could I save my only fulcrum tool. We lost our crops, our cattle… everything.

The night the flood hit one part of our village completely collapsed and was submerged in the river in front of our eyes . Before we understood what was happening, everything went under water. No one could save anything without losing their lives. We could just save our lives by running far away, holding hands with our family members.

I don’t know in what way I have sinned in order to deserve being punished like this year after year. I don’t know where I will go with my young girl after being released from here. For the last two weeks we have been living here because of my wife’s sickness. My wife’s condition is getting worse day by day. I am a beggar now. And as a beggar, I am begging to my god to please not take my wife away from me. I just don’t want to lose her too.

_ Khairul Mia

We have been born with the fate of uncertainty. Every year that we are alive, we live with the power of our fate. As each year passes by and we count ourselves fortunate; we count each new breath as good luck. The year of Cyclone Aila in 2009 was the curse of my life. We lost the only tree over our head. I lost my husband in the cyclone. No one could find the body of my husband for us to see him for one last time. Can you imagine how unfortunate we have been?

For the last six years I have been fighting uncountable complications with my four daughters. People say daughters are blessings, but for me daughters are dangers no matter how beautiful and moderate they are. There is danger in everything and  it’s worse when you are poor and homeless. I had never thought it would be  such a challenge to marry my beautiful daughters. Whenever I used to worry about them my husband would say, “Why are you so tense? The boys will fly to take those angels away.” But like everything else the salty water stole my daughters’ beauty.

I came here from Shatkhira, Munshiganj with my two unmarried daughters two years ago. Who wants to leave their birthplace and come here? But I have been obliged for the sake of my daughters’ lives and futures. My daughters had to walk uncountable miles every day for drinking water.  If it’s so difficult to find enough drinking water just to survive, can you imagine how hard it has been to obtain fresh water for my girls to showers? So they have showered in the salt water, which is very bad for our skin. It itches. It was a nightmare when my girls got their periods. I couldn’t bear their crying every month. The land gave us nothing but dead hopes. We couldn’t grow crops because of the cursed salt water. We couldn’t provide drinking water for our cattle. With no source of income, we couldn’t live there. Must I remain because it is my homeland even when my homeland is not able to feed me?

I moved to this rice field two years ago with others from my village. I had to take an advance of 50 thousand taka from my manager. With that money I repaid the loan I had taken to feed my children throughout the years since cyclone Aila. It may take me one more year to repay the loan to my manager. Our work here is very hard but at least I can drink water whenever I feel thirsty and I can feed my children every day.  We don’t need to starve day after day. I don’t have to listen to my children crying for water and food.  Sometimes at night I remember tearfully the joy of earlier days. But I force myself to go to sleep, in order to be ready the next day for the reality of life.

_ Parvin Akter

I never thought even in my worst dreams that I would have to leave my land and move to Dhaka – but this is what I am about to do. But what we want is never always that which happens. I don’t know how I will live there in one restricted tiny room after living in my open-spaced village here. How will I breathe in that blocked room? But it is also not possible to live here in my village anymore.

My grandson Motaleb came from Dhaka last night to take me with him from this cursed village where I have been almost dying for the last 10 years. But I didn’t want to go to Dhaka or leave this place. My seven sons moved from our village after the severe cyclone to search for work and for living. We had a house of eight rooms. We were not a poor family but now you can call us beggars. We have nothing left after that extreme cyclone. That cyclone took thousands of people’s houses and lives. Everyone moved to different places from here.  Overnight middle-class families became beggars.

Luckily one of my sons saw a tide 8-10 feet high breaking a dam and coming right towards our house . He cried out, “We will die if we do not leave this place. Let’s leave the place”. We couldn’t take anything with us. We were holding trees with one hand and with their other hand my two sons helped me and saved my life. I saw everything was floating; cows, goats, ducks, chickens, trees, even people. Everything was floating away in front of me.  I can never forget this memory.

We are from the coastal area so I have seen a lot of cyclones during my lifetime of 70 years, but I never felt that worried. However, this time people were very worried. I have never seen this kind of destructive cyclone before. Usually water would come and go and we would mend the damage every year. But Cyclone Aila took everything from us. It is not possible for us to be like we were before.

My sons  tried to make me understand that nothing was left here for me to be able to live here alone. But I never accepted their impassioned insistence and I did not want to leave my homeland where I have been living my whole life. However, it is now impossible for me to live here alone with a lack of available food and sweet water. Drought, frequent floods and storms as well as the barbaric torture of jungle animals have made my life Hell and have caused health problems for me. Last month I asked my elder son to take me with them. Today I am leaving my homeland forever at this old age taking every good and bad memory with me. I don’t know how many days I will live but I know even after my death I will not return to this land again.

_ Hamida Begum

I have no one. I am alone in this world now. For the last 10 years I have been living alone only remembering that day. For my one and only wrong decision, I lost my whole family in the horrifying 15 November Cyclone Sidr. I don’t know what I should call it – good luck or bad luck.  I am the only one in my family to have survived by holding onto the last tree in our village! I can’t forget how the next morning I was searching for my loved ones and lining up the dead bodies one by one. I lost my two daughters, my only son and my husband that night. I can’t forget losing everything; all my cattle were floating away like water lilies in the cyclone water.  The water took away everything from me.

I am from Pathorghata Borguna. There, every year we faced big and small cyclones. But in 2010 even in my worst dreams I never thought this would happen. My daughters asked me while holding onto me tightly several times “Ma, it’s a number 10 warning signal and they are announcing it again and again. Ma, we are feeling really afraid. Let’s go to the cyclone center.” But I was a foolish woman. I did not listen to them.  I did not listen to my husband either because I thought nothing would happen. I was feeling very lethargic and did not want to take everything with us to the cyclone center.  I thought like the many storms before, that the cyclone would pass and nothing would happen. For my obstinate decision of that cursed night I had to bury them alone the next day. I had to take out a loan from my villagers to bury my family members because I lost everything in the cyclone. I have only the sari I was wearing that night. I starved under a tree for several miserable nights.

I could not bear it, but I had to come here to search food in order to stay alive with my other villagers. When you are alive, your stomach hurts for food. For the sake of this stomach I had to come here. But it’s a very difficult job that I have been doing for the last 10 years in order to survive. But now I know there is nothing too difficult for the poor.  When coming here I took a 20-thousand taka advance from the owners and I have been returning this money for the last ten years. We get a very little amount of money: only 60 taka for a long day’s work when we finish drying one field of rice. Sometimes when it’s the rainy season or the sun doesn’t show up, it takes three to four days to finish drying one field of rice for 60 taka. The owners take the loan money out plus interest.  They give us rice but we have to buy vegetables from our money so we have to take out more loans from the owners. I became their slave for 20 thousand taka and this is how my life will end: working here day after day.

_ Fatema Begum

My entire life had been spent on an island on the Brahmaputra River. I had never seen any vehicles in my 35 years of life, except for boats, ox carts and horse carts. Like me hundreds of women from these islands had never seen any modern vehicles. The men of the islands went out for necessary things but women didn’t need to go anywhere. I, myself, never imagined a city life could look like this. Last year for the first time I left my land in search of making a living with my complete family and came to Dhaka. We took out a loan to move here in the hope that our family could at least eat three meals a day. We had to rebuild our home 5 times before we decided it was time to move. Before coming here, we were surviving by eating a blend of wheat powder with river water once a day. Sometimes we ate a mix of rice and eggplant. If my husband could catch a fish from the river, it was royal food for my family.

I was born on the island of Shakhahatichor in Chilmari district, 400 miles away from Dhaka. Chilmari district has 6 unions, or councils but 4 out of 6 are now in the middle of the river. Our island is one of them. Life is becoming more difficult every year for the people of the islands. People are dying from starvation there. Nothing grows on our islands because of draught. People have nothing to do; no jobs for surviving. There are no agricultural activities for farmers. In recent decades our area has been afflicted by severe droughts. There were not many problems in the previous years because there was adequate water in the Brahmaputra River. Now the water does not flow. The mighty Brahmaputra is the lifeline for our agricultural and our domestic lives, but it is dying every day and taking thousands of lives with it.

Thousands of islanders are facing a serious food crisis, natural disasters and temperature problems. Every year from mid-September through mid-November, this crisis is extreme. We call the period Mora Kartik, meaning the months of death and disaster. The last time we were there we couldn’t even stay in our hut because of the intolerable cold and wind. Now the season and weather have become unpredictable. Last winter my father died in his old age because he couldn’t tolerate the biting, painful cold any longer. My father used to say: “It’s so cold that tigers are shaking.” He is not the only one; lots of old people die every year from these conditions. During winter this place becomes unbearable yet during summer the heat feels like Hell.

Even though we were hungry on our island, we never wanted to move to Dhaka. But we had nothing left but our two hands. Without food or a  job, these hands are incapable of feeding our mouths. So, I listened to my husband and came to Dhaka for work. My husband is a day laborer and I work as a cook in a canteen where laborers eat every day. I have to work hard the whole day for 3000 taka and food for myself. Sometimes I can take some leftovers for my children. Life is very hard here too but at least we have opportunities for income. We can eat three times a day. My children don’t have to starve for food anymore. That is what I have wanted my whole life.

_ Morjina Begum

When danger comes, it comes in every conceivable way. Who would have thought that we would have to work here in this dirty dump yard? Fate has dragged me here. I am from a respectable family. Women of our family never used to work outside of the home ever. Now I work here with my whole family.

After cyclone Sidr, we were trying to fix our house but another cyclone, Aila, took the rest of it. We lost everything to the rising tide.  We lost our home, crops and now we are losing our dignity by doing this work every day. Everything we had is under water now. Now, except these hands, we have nothing left and are like beggars.

My father-in-law could not tolerate our situation and died from the grief of losing his home, land and property. My husband left me with my two daughters without saying anything and married a woman for money. I know he is living with his new wife in a nearby slum. I never thought that he could do this to me and to our two beloved daughters. How could he leave us like this? Once upon a time I had a family and a home. My husband could not eat if I did not cook the food myself. Now I know everything was a dream and the biggest lie ever.

I came here after taking a loan from villagers and selling some of my jewelry which I had been wearing my whole life. I took my mother-in-law with us. She is all alone now. How could I leave her? I thought if we eat, she will eat with us. Now I have four mothers; my own mother, my mother-in-law and my two beloved daughters. We are all working here and living in a rented tin shed room. We are working hard and repaying the loan every month. My daughters can’t go to school anymore. How can they? After working here the whole day in this smelly rubbish, no one allows us to sit beside them. Getting water is very tough. The whole night we have to wait in the line to take a bath, but washing and smelling the soap feels heavenly.

I passed class eight but my daughters can’t even pass primary school. There is no end to our troubles. I can’t tolerate seeing two older women working so hard every day. I can’t bear to see my innocent, beloved daughters  working in this dump yard from morning till night just to survive. I feel so depressed and feel like giving up sometimes. It’s better to die than seeing this misery in our lives. People throw broken glass and blades in the garbage; they never think there are people like me who have to work here. Those of you who threw that broken glass in the garbage need to know it cuts our feet. But it’s okay; I am accustomed to such pain. I forgot the last time when I smiled but the tears never stop rolling down from my eyes. We sit here and have our lunch. The smell of rubbish is nothing to us anymore. Nowadays our lives have become more rotten than this rotten dump yard.

_ Nurjahan Begum

We are the people from north Bengal who lived on the banks of the Brahmaputra River. Each year we were the first in the country to endure the flooding, before floods came to other parts of the country.

We had become accustomed to flooding because we had experienced it all our lives and fought against the odds every year. But in 2010 the flooding was so sudden that it left us with a new shoreline. We survived for four days on the top of that shore but the next day, it too was underwater. After searching madly for a whole day for banana trees, my husband finally found five trees to make a raft. We tied it to our hut so that it did not float away and we moved our essentials onto the raft.

I never imagined that on this night my life was going to change forever. After finishing our dinner, we were resting on our raft sitting and holding each other so that we didn’t fall into the water. After having done a lot of work looking for materials and building the raft, we were tired. We were resting and I was breastfeeding our one-and-a-half-year-old girl. The whole night I was very concerned and was breastfed her for a long while. At the end of the night when it was almost dawn and I heard the sound of the azaan call of prayer. Then I heard the sound of something falling into the water.  For just one second I had not thought about my child and the next second she was no longer there.  I cried out wildly and jumped into the water. My husband also jumped in. We searched for her frantically. We were dipping in the water and crying loudly at the same time.  My husband was diving and calling her name “my Moyna, my Moyna, O Allah, my mother!” The current was so strong that it was pulling me away. After a while I fainted at the thought that I had lost my treasure; a baby that had taken seven years to conceive.  After that accident I became mentally-ill for five years. I had to have treatment in a mental hospital from 2010 to 2015. My mental health improved when I fell pregnant for the second time, 6 years later. But after Arafat  was born, I became terrified that I would lose my child again in the water. After seeing my mental condition, my husband brought me here by selling everything we had.

There is nothing called poor persons ‘luck’ just as there is no guarantee of a poor person’s life. We came to this railway slum last year. Life became even more perilous here in the slum than in our flooded village. I can’t leave my son for a single second because  trains come and go every 10 minutes. There is nowhere to move to from here because this slum is the cheapest in the city.

With the money we have we cannot go to any other slum. My husband works alone for us as a rickshaw driver. I cannot go to work – who will guard my son?  It does not matter if I do or don’t eat, but I can’t bear losing my child, my heart again.  If you haven’t gone through this, you wouldn’t understand the horrific pain when one loses that part of your heart. Life is hard for poor people when even nature treats us so poorly. It is nature that plays the most devastating role with poor people like us.  If this were not true then the floods would not have been so cruel as to take so much from me.

_ Rita Begum

We woke up in terror after the roof of our house was swept away, and moments later we were chest deep in rising waters. The water came in so quickly and it got so high that it almost reached the ceiling of our house. My parents jumped into the water to try to save the cattle but could not. We lost everything in the cyclone. We escaped with just our lives from there seven years ago.

There were between 100 and 150 families along the riverbank. All their homes were washed away just like ours. We lost everything. We lost our boats, our cattle, and our land was flooded with salt water. All the land is under water now. We had to move very quickly and we couldn’t take anything except the clothes we were wearing. We were left with nothing just like refugees. Today, boats pass over the place where our land was; where I spent all of my childhood like a dream.

I started my job as a sex worker seven years ago here in Dhaka City, when my mother committed suicide for the unbearable pain of our losses and my father fled leaving me to look after my four siblings. My little sisters and brothers don’t know what I do till midnight. Sometimes it’s very hard to explain to them why I can’t return at night to them. But this is the only job I could find that would allow me to feed my family. They wait the whole night for me so that I am there to hold them beside me while we all sleep. My only aim now is to feed my siblings and give them a better life. Seeing them going to school every day fills me with a lot of pride. I can take care of them till the evening, after that they take care of each other.

I have been pregnant several times and have had to have abortions. I always prayed to God, “Please don’t allow this pain to happen to even my worst enemy”.

_ Rubina

We came to Dhaka from Gabura, Munshiganj, in the Sathkhira area two months ago and now we are living on the streets. There was nothing left in our area except hunger and uncertain livelihoods – we were surrounded by salty water and drought ravaged lands. In order to come here, I had to I had to sell my only pair of gold rings that I got from my mother-in-law which is a symbol prestige and value in our family. When our life is valueless, how is it possible to protect our values? I sold my prestige to feed my family.

I never thought my life would turn into Hell soon after that first cyclone. Hundreds of people left our villages after cyclone Aila due to lack of food, sweet water and a secure life. But we did not leave then. We did not want to leave our forefathers’ land, showing disrespect. But we had no choice. There was nothing left there. No opportunities for surviving. You could not even beg from anyone. Everybody became so poor, nobody had anything to give you.

We suffered terribly in winter and during the monsoon season in our broken hut in our village. My husband used to sell fish in the local market and somehow used to manage to get us one meal a day. When he would manage this one meal, my son used to burst into happiness and I would burst into tears, thankful that we were avoiding starvation. But there were many days when all my son wanted was some rice and I had none to give him.  In such unimaginable misery, our hungry stomachs pushed us to come here to search for work and survive.

My husband started riding a rickshaw a few days ago. It was very difficult to get the rickshaw for rent because owners won’t rent you one if they don’t know you. We knew no one in Dhaka. After several weeks, we got somebody from our area that helped us to rent the rickshaw from the garage. Before this, we begged on the street in order to survive with our children.

We are still living on the streets as we can’t afford to rent a room in a slum.  The rooms are more money than my husband can  earn in a day by riding the rickshaw. I know no work other than doing household chores. I am now searching for a job as a maid but like my husband, I need someone to help me.

_ Salina Begum

“Sometimes the strongest women are the ones who love beyond all faults, who cry behind closed doors, and who fight battles that nobody knows about. This blog post is dedicated to honouring women who are living at the edge of the society and who continue their fighting to earn food and dignity but who rarely ever come into the world’s limelight. Even the society in which they are living has never appreciated their bravery. I have met with many of them, discovering up close how women have worked for the greater good and have brought about change in their families and society. This is a way to pay tribute to a mother, sister, wife, daughter, friend and the many roles a woman plays in her life. These personalities have taught me that nothing can kill the spirit of a woman and that is what makes her so incredibly beautiful” – GMB Akash

“It’s hard to be a woman. You must think like a man, act like a lady, look like a young girl, and work like a horse.”

“A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.” – Marge Percy

“Don’t be the girl who fell. Be the girl who got back up.” – Jenette Stanley

“You have what it takes to be victorious, independent, fearless woman.” -Tyra Banks

“Never apologize for being a powerful woman.”

“There is no force more powerful than a woman determined to rise.”     

“A strong woman stands up for herself. A stronger woman stands up for everybody else.”

“When a woman rises up in glory, her energy is magnetic and her sense of possibility contagious.” -Marianne Williamson

“The best protection any woman can have … is courage.”

“Women today are their own heroes. The power to change their lives lies within them.”

“I am proud of the woman I am today, because I went through one hell of a time becoming her.”

However well accomplished a woman may be, she tends to take on guilt and responsibility more easily than a man. Oftentimes, she is conditioned to believe that everyone and everything is her responsibility. Sometimes, she forgets that she has a responsibility towards herself. Accept and love yourself because there is just one YOU!

“God can’t be everywhere and therefore, he created Mothers! ” _ Rudyard Kipling

Mothers are God’s angels on earth whose prayers always follow us wherever we are! They are the guardian angels for us, in whose arms we feel the safest. Mothers are the only ones whose smell we can never forget. On their faces we find the warmest smiles that can wash away thousands of sorrows for us. In our mothers’ hearts we never grow up and we never grow old!

No words can define those precious women, our mothers, who give us all the love that anyone could possibly give and they give it unconditionally.

To honour all these ‘angels’ of our lives, I have gathered stories for my blog post which I am dedicating to all mothers on this Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother’s Day to my treasured angelic friends.

I am sharing with you few heart-warming real-life stories of mothers, Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

No one thought my daughter could survive. I conceived after ten years of our marriage. When my daughter was born three months earlier than my delivery date, she was very premature. Everyone wanted to take her from me in the village. They told me that I should not get attached to my baby. They warned me that it will cause me severe heartbreak. I screamed at my people and my husband asked them to leave us alone. He told me that he would take us anywhere to save our child. I know from my heart that I could never lose her. No one knew that I got her in my dream; she was inside of me many years ago even before she existed. She was not new to me. I saw her face and felt I knew my child; there can be no other face but her’s. We arrived in the city. For six months my husband and I did not sleep. We did not close our eyes. My daughter was not able to breathe properly and I kept her in my lap all night long. My husband sold his rickshaw for us. Whenever her condition got worse, I held my baby to my chest and whispered in her ears not to leave me. I told her how many years I waited for her. I told her how much we loved her, how much we needed her in our lives. My husband was always silent. But he looked at her wide face and called her Moon. I told him it’s a girl so it’s better to call her Moonlight. And our love survived. Now my daughter is five years old. I can remember how I prayed to God to let my child stay with me and to take away everything else I had. I have got my daughter; her smile is enough to keep my world alive.

_Asma with her daughter Chadni (5)

Appreciate the food your mother cooks for you. Some don’t have food, others don’t have mothers.

Worrying is a waste of time. It doesn’t change anything. All it does is steal your peace and distract from your focus.The day I adopted a five-year-old Hindu orphan boy, I was very worried. Everyone yelled at me. My husband wanted to leave me! But you know what, after 30 years of that day my husband died taking my Hindu boys’ hand on his chest. Because of my Hindu boy I have never had to be worried again about anything in my life. My boy builds a Madrasah for orphan children. There are 15-20 children living and getting education from the Madrasah there. Though I have four more children people call me Krishna’s Mother. I feel proud and respected.
After growing up, Krishna always took care of us. So much so that our own children did not even have to take care for us although they were loved by us and they loved us also. Krishna used to take care of his father when he was sick in bed! He used to tell me every day, “My mother and father are my heaven. In my next life, I only want to be your son!”
I have learned, life is like a pottery bank, you get everything back what you’ve put in. I loved him and got his love back for my whole my life. I am a happy person. During my whole life according to my ability, I wanted to do good for people. And I believe, doing good for people and knowing you are doing good makes a fine pillow for your old age.

_Julekha Begum

“A mother is the only person on Earth who loves you more than she loves herself.”

A mother’s love for her child never ends. After my husband’s death, my son was the only umbrella over my head. He was everything to me; my son, my friend, my caregiver, everything.

Last year he died on my lap. No one will understand the pain of seeing the lifeless face of their own child. I pray to God no mother shall have to bury their children before them. It’s been almost one year.

Everyone said, “Give it time. Time heals all wounds.” But It doesn’t heal the wounds of losing your child! Though you know they are in Heaven, the pain itself feels like Hell.

I love to eat sweets. Every day he used to say, “Maa let’s go to my shop and eat sweets”. He used to bring me to his sweet shop while holding my hands in order to feed me sweets. But I know he really brought me here in order to protect me from loneliness. I used to sit in his shop with him. People used to laugh but he never cared.

My son died in his sixtieth last year. Now, during the whole day I roam around his sweet shop. I know I will never see my son again. Even though I can’t walk properly, I can’t stop myself from coming here every day to retain his memory.Sometimes I sit the entire day in front of his shop.

My eyes always search for him. After his birth, all my life I never felt alone nor neglected for a second ever again. Now I am so scared of my future without him. My heart longs for his care, for his company, to be around him for my safety and to not feel lonely. After his death, I never felt alive again. A part of my life went with him. I search for him on everyone I see around me. The death of a child is like losing your breath and never catching it again.

_Milon Mala

“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.”

‘I lost many things in my life and by standing at the end of my life, now I can tell you, how I gained everything what I had lost.

My husband died when during flood, a tree had fallen on him. I was standing just ten feet away from him in water. That night, I was seven months pregnant. After losing my husband, my house and everything I had, I felt to commit suicide. But I became mother after waiting for twelve years for a child. I had to survive for my child, so I came to city to search for work. After so many struggles I gave birth to my son, midwife told me, my son had problem and asked me to be prepared for his death. When he died after seven days, I had no one beside me and had no money. Even if you die you need money but no one came forward to help me. Only some orphan-street children gave me money, so I could do his last work. After buried him when I return to my hut, I didn’t cry. From that day, I no longer look behind what I had lost. Since the day, for thirty years, I had feed one orphan each day from my food. I lost my child but I kept giving the portion of his love to every miserable child I met on my way.

Last five years, I am suffering from tuberculosis and heart problems. Now all those orphan children grew up and taking care of me. I lost one child but now I have hundred’

_Maa Asha

“When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.” – Mitch Albom

My son’s marriage is going to held next week. He bought gold ornaments for his new bride. But last night he very much surprised me by showing me the new gold jewelry set he bought for me! This is the happiest day in my life. I had to sell all my jewelry to survive with my 5 children for years after the death of my husband.

I had to sell my bangles that I started using after my marriage as well as my earrings that I got from my father and even the nose pin that carries the symbols of my husband.

Life was very hard for years after years. I started to battle for my 5 children. The battle was all about having some food to feed them. I worked at some people’s house as a maid. They used to give me a half kg of rice after a whole day work and after coming back home I used to cook this rice. Sitting around on the floor I used to feed them from one bowl with my own hand so that I could feed them equally.

We used to live in a room made of cane and it was badly broken-down. I had to spend night after night not sleeping to protect my girls from evil people.

I could not send my daughters to school! When feeding 5 children everyday was already the biggest challenge, how could I send them to school? Even I could not provide any clothes for my 4 daughters. They used to wear used clothes given by the family I was working for. They could not go to school wearing old ragged cloths. In very difficult circumstances I managed to marry off all my daughters. Every day my life was a struggle to find the necessities of survival. I continued to struggle without any hope of light.

But I never could stop the education of my son. He was very interested in his studies. He continued his school wearing my blouse and even his elder sister’s pajamas.

Only his invincible desire for changing our fate and becoming educated changed our lives from night to day. For the last 10 years after finishing his education he has been working abroad. There was a time when I did not have even 10 taka cash in my hands. Now I count thousands of taka every month.

One day when my son was young, I gave him some cold rice with Salt before his school and he asked me, “Don’t we have anything else?” I replied, “Grow up and buy a fridge for me so that I can keep everything you want in it!” With his first salary, my son bought me a fridge. Furthermore, he brought electricity into our home. Never in my wildest dreams did I think of enjoying the delight of electric light in our house. He even bought a colour TV which makes me feel very shy when I watch it.

In my life after struggling so much, I learned one thing: just working hard or getting an education is not enough. One has to carry the invincible desire to change the lives of their loved ones.

_Koyer jaan

I have spent weeks in the Bandarban district, one of the three tribal populated Chittagong Hill Tract districts, in southeastern Bangladesh. I went to meet the largest hidden Mru tribe and to also visit the most remote indigenous group of Murongs, the fourth largest hidden tribe in the area.

Their smiling and welcoming faces as well as the extraordinary hospitality of my friend’s family with whom I was living, made an ever-lasting impression upon me about this hidden tribe.

I learned from the tribe, how someone could live life and still enjoy every second of it despite the seemingly unsurmountable limitations. Without a doubt, the Mru are a very distinctive and unique people and when I took the time to get to know them and to document them, I found an exceptionally rewarding experience for myself.

I have always found that it is the people who make a place come alive and provide new completely different and unimaginable experiences for the visitor who is fortunate enough to meet them. I felt like an honored guest of these exceptional people and I would like to pay a tribute here of some of the people I encountered by sharing their unconventional lives and photographs with you.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

The solitary, independent and peace-loving Mru people have lived in the Hill Tract of southeastern Bangladesh and western Burma for centuries – their small population being split almost in half by the border. Many scholars believe them to be the original inhabitants of the region. Mru prefer to live on the remote hilltops; even away from other hill tribes. Their villages are easily distinguished by sacred bamboo totems, presided over by guardian spirits.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

The Mru people are also known as the as Mro or Murong. The Mru people introduce themselves as Mro-cha. The word ‘Mro’ means ‘man’ and ‘cha’ stands for ‘being’.

They have Mongoloid features but are tall and strong with dark complexions. They are peaceful and timid. Physically, they closely resemble the Semang of Malaysia.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

Mru are very egalitarian and have no castes and few hereditary positions. They are extremely non-confrontational and take pride in being patient and peaceful. Each household has an equal voice in all village affairs. They are one of the few indigenous peoples who have staunchly retained their own unique culture, rituals and beliefs. With no functional leadership or hierarchies, this lack of higher-level social organization makes it difficult from them to avail of, or cooperate in joint efforts for ‘development’ or cultural preservation. Thus, they are one of the least ‘modern’ of all the hill tribes, consciously preserving their distinct lifestyle. Mru are especially known for their mystical music, ascetic dress, exotic appearance and long, flower-adorned hair kept in topknots. Curiously, mru have no sense of being ‘tribal’ as do other indigenous peoples. They consider themselves just ordinary floks. Mru value their independence above all else, just desiring to pursue a traditional lifestyle free from domination or exploitation.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

The Mru are a very poor people. Although they inhabit a region that is rich in lumber and hydroelectric potential, the villagers lack the technology and knowledge to improve their economic conditions.

But the Mru excuse their poverty because they believe that Torai (the god) intended them to live this way. At the same time, they pride themselves in their self-sufficiency.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

The Mro society is patriarchal. Although the father is the head of the family, women play a dominant role in social life. They depend mainly on hunting but many of them are engaged in Jhum cultivation.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

In addition to farming, many of the Mru men are skilled in producing bamboo items. Mru women are especially fond of wearing jewelry and other ornaments made by local craftsmen. Most Murongs are Buddhists although some are Christian converts.

©GMB Akash/www.gmb-akash.com

A father is the most ordinary man who through love turned into a superhero! A superhero who grants all our wishes, supports us in our lives when the going gets tough and gives us a shoulder to cry on. For us he does everything! Who is always there to spoiled us with value and etiquette!. The one who motivates us to achieve our every dream by being our strong support system! The one who always stands like a big wall between us and the world when it tries to pull us down.

The only thing he will ask in return is our smiling face! He surely made us believe every person in himself is a superhero. A superhero we look up to no matter how tall we grow or how old we become, we still miss him when he’s not there.

Who needs imaginary superheroes when we have our fathers.

This is a tribute post to all fathers around the world. Although one day is not enough to honor these ‘Superheroes of our lives’, it is with respect and love that I’m publishing it to wish all fathers a very Happy Father’s Day.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

No sir, I am not the boss of our house. Now my elder daughter is the boss of my family.

Last week when she wanted to join the annual swimming competition at her school, her mother wouldn’t allow her to because she was afraid of people’s negative criticism and said, “What will people say seeing your 13-year-old girl swimming in the pond wearing her frock!?” That day, my daughter was crying the whole morning sitting in front of the door and her mother was completely ignoring her weeping! But I couldn’t ignore it. I gave my only t-shirt and towel to her while showing it to her mother and said, “Don’t come home again if you can’t win the race!” I knew she would win the race, because for the last month I have been observing her swimming near the pond competing with other girls of our slum and she was winning. That evening she returned home with 3 new plates as the winner’s prize. She had won all three different swimming races! I can’t tell you how proud I felt when she showed me my name on those certificates as the winner’s father. We are four members in our family.

Now my two daughters and I eat on our new plates. We didn’t share our new plates with her mother. This is her punishment until next year when she gives her permission to our daughter to participate in the competition again. She should learn that other people never want to see the best sides of others. So I am trying to make my wife understand that not caring about and even ignoring what people say about our girls is the best choice we can ever make.

_Manik Mia

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I found out I was wrong my whole life. Throughout my life, I have been running behind a mirage: the mirage of winning and for winning everything, we need money! My whole childhood I saw that without money nothing happens, and no one cares about you, so I wanted to make money!

I am a day laborer and I never could give my family the basic necessities in their lives because whatever I used to earn I used it to buy lottery tickets!
I was so deeply involved in the process of becoming rich in an easy way to the point that buying lottery tickets was the only passion in my life. The more I was careless about my family the more I was up to date about the date of my lottery publication!

I can even remember all the lottery numbers I have ever bought all these years. All my life I have dreamed about winning lotteries! Every day I prayed about and imagined having my name being pulled out of the lottery box!

I have a son but I do not even know who admitted my son into school. I don’t know who took him to the school on his first day or even when he finished his primary level!But I remember, I have always scolded my wife saying “what is the point of going to school for poor people”? I told her several times to tell him to stop going to school and start working with us full time. But she never listened to me.

I had never noticed how time had passed so quickly in my life. But I noticed how hopeless I was becoming by losing the lottery with every ticket! I feel very ashamed when I remember about that day, how insanely I had beaten my son for stealing money for his JSC examination fees that I was saving to buy lottery tickets again.

After that day he didn’t talk to me for months. One day, after coming back from school, my son suddenly gave me a hug for the first time in his life and put his first 800 taka scholarship in my hand! And for the first time I realized, what love is! I realized what the real-life lottery is!

After that day I never bought a single lottery ticket ever again, instead I helped my son with his studies. Sir, he is doing his HSC and he earns his own money by doing tuitions. He says, “You do not have to work anymore after my graduation, Abba”. I can now understand how much he loves his parents.
He will never know how much he taught me; ‘love and success is never a lottery which we can’t win, we earn it with our everyday struggles and passion’!

_Motaleb

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My daughter’s hair was very long. Every morning before I went to the field I combed her hair. Even when she was thirteen years old, I combed her hair. She brought our lunch to the field every afternoon. During Hut day I took her with me to buy little things for our house. Once she bought a mud bank where we saved money for floods. I can clearly remember her face that day when she was sitting near my feet and cried for no reason. I asked her several times what had happened. She hesitantly said she had a fever. I went to the village doctor for medicine. And when I returned, she was gone. My dinner was covered and the mud bank was on my bed. I searched for my girl everywhere, in every house of our village. I thought maybe she was angry with me for some reason or maybe she went somewhere to bring something for the kitchen. Everyone tried to shame me, but I did not feel shame. I was very afraid for my only daughter. When I found out she flew with a boy, I did not trust that. And I waited for her every day. I cannot remember the last time. when I slept peacefully But years have gone by and she never returned. Now I am even more fearful for her, because I know wherever she is staying, she ought to come back to me. Villagers asked me to stop looking for her. They told me to accept that maybe something very bad had happened to her. But my heart did not give up. My heart is still traveling the whole world to find my daughter. Sometimes at night I have nightmares. I hear my daughter telling me she is suffering. I cry in my sleep. I cry and beg to God to return my daughter to me.

– Osman Ali

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My younger daughter has a great sense of humor. She tells a lot of jokes and makes us laugh all the time. The elder one is a bit slow. It takes five minutes for him to understand anything. If he goes to buy anything he will wait to ask until everyone leaves the shop with all their goods. My wife is worried for the elder one most. Whenever they go outside together she gives the responsibility of the elder child to the younger one. My wife gave them their nicknames: Bhola and Biccu. It’s been one year since I have been able to go to the village to see them. Every day I call my children from my neighbor’s phone just to hear their voices. I usually pay for three minutes to talk to the three of them. In those three minutes the three of them only ask when I will be returning to them. After one year I am finally with two of my children. I brought them here to spend a few days with me. They have been cuddling with me since they came. I am not going to work today; I decided to spend the whole day with my children. I usually earn one hundred taka every day. But today is a different day, I do not want to work today. I bought fresh milk and two bananas for my children. They love these things very much. We are laughing because when I asked my younger one what she wants me to buy for them. She said, ‘A pond full of milk and a banana garden!.’

_Hossain Ali

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I poured my blood and sweat into educating my son. For the last 20 years I have been carrying tons of stone on my shoulders from morning till evening in order to pay my son’s educational fees and make him a better human being. My wife and I never spend a single extra penny so that my son would not have to suffer in his college. I forgot the last time that I bought a new shirt for myself or a saree for my wife.

As a father of an undergraduate student, I believed in him and gave him everything I earned for his education. But my blind belief in him become the curse of our lives. Last year I found out that he became a serious drug addict.

There is no difference between an animal and a drug addict. Every night my son fights with me and beats his mother for money. We don’t have any belongings nowadays in our house. He has sold everything we had.

Yesterday after finishing work when I was returning home, I was feeling very thirsty. I went to a shop for a glass of water. I saw that a box of breads was looking at me. But I did not spend a single taka. For the last year, I have been saving every single taka to take my son to a rehabilitation center.

I just came from hospital to work. Last night my son took extra amounts of drugs and sleeping pills. His mother was very worried. But the doctor said they washed out his stomach thoroughly and now he will be fine soon. I asked the doctor, “We saved money to care for him, can you please wash out my son’s brain, heart and soul and everything else to make him fine and good again?” The doctor didn’t give any reply to this old uneducated father.

I am old now. I can’t take the weight of this drug addict son anymore on my shoulders. It hurts and it’s far more painful than any weight I have ever carried in all my years as a stone carrier.

_Jainal

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The night my elder brother married I was only 10 years old. I was so amazed to see the beautiful angelic bride. Everyone was visiting her like she was a queen. Shamelessly, in front of everyone, I said to my brother I will marry a beautiful girl like her! My brother and everyone laughed loudly.

After the marriage she become the favourite person of everyone in our house. She used to take care of everyone. People in our village was very jealous because of the beautiful bride. Eight years passed as in a blink and the only difference was that we got two new angelic daughters in our house as family members.

In the eighth year my brother died during a very simple fever and the scene at home started changing so fast. No one wanted my sister-in-law to stay in our house anymore. Everyone started blaming her that my brother had died. Lots of her faults were suddenly coming out of everyone’s mouths after eight years! Everyone was blaming her, saying that she is cursed and that even her shadow is also ominous for us now. They accused her of being a husband eater. My parents told her to leave the house. She looked in my eyes I saw a worried mother helplessly looking at everyone. At the age of 20 I took a big decision to take the responsibility of her and her two little girls. I said I wanted to marry her.

Everyone looked at me like suddenly they discovered a ghost in front of them. No one agreed when I wanted to marry a widow. My mother cried out and said, “She will eat you too!!” My father wanted to throw me out with them but I didn’t changed my decision to take the responsibility of the woman who is 10 years older than me. Holding two daughters with two hands I left my father’s home 40 years ago.

I don’t believe that only giving birth makes you a good father or mother! For the last 40 years I have been the father of my two daughters. I tried my best to become their father. Everyone says that they look exactly like me. This makes me happy. In my childhood everyone used to say I looked like my elder brother!
In my life I took only one right decision and that was to marry that widow! During my whole my life she loved me more than I love myself and gave me two beautiful angelic daughters; caring daughters who don’t understand anything else except their father.
I am very happy today I became a grandfather this morning! It’s a boy! My daughters named my grandson with my name ‘Mostofa’. Lots of guests come to see Mostofa in our home. I am here to buy some packets of sweets for the guests.

_Mostofa

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

When we are able to cook something good, I always hide it from my wife, Buri, and take some to my son. In the moment, it is impossible to stop thinking about my son, Afjal. But Buri always catches me when I go to my son’s house to give them food. My son lives separately, opposite our house, with his wife and son.

Last week I caught a big fish from our Kaliganga River. I can’t remember the last time we ate a large fish. Nowadays I can’t go fishing due to my chronic health condition and cold I’ve had for a while. At my age, I am not able to do any work. Sometimes my wife and I go fishing together. Most times we catch a few tiny fish and then collect vegetables from the riverbank. This is how we’ve been surviving for the last few years.

After cooking that big fish, I secretly tried to take two large pieces to my son, but my wife caught me and started yelling at me.

“You have no shame! When will you feel some shame? They never send anything to you; they never visit you for months. Why do you need to share with them every time I cook something nice for you?”

Yes I feel shame. I feel terrible shame at lunchtimes when I smell chicken or beef being cooked at my son’s house. At those times my wife looks me in the eyes and I am unable to swallow my food. She knows that I love to eat chicken and beef. My son and his wife never share anything with us. Afjal never cares how his mother and father are surviving in their old age, all alone. And we live just steps away from their house.

But I have no regrets. I always pray to Allah that my son and his family will have a wonderful, blissful life – that they should never suffer for want of food or love. I pray too that when they are old, their children will love them, unconditionally.

_Amser Mia (80 years old)

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

During our whole marriage, we always wanted a boy. We have three daughters. We gave up hope for a son or for any other children because of our age. But in our old age God give us a son as a gift. I was very ashamed and at the same time very happy when he was born. His sisters gave him his name “Rajkumar” because of his beauty. He is very much younger compared to my age. People used to make fun of me when I used to take him with me to the market calling out, “Why do you bring your grandson with you?” He became my cane in my old age. He was everywhere helping me with my work. I used to look at him surprisingly and used to pray for him to God to please protect him from bad eyes.

He wanted to go to Dhaka to work four years with his friends. I was not agreeing with my wife. I asked her why he needs to go to Dhaka to work when we have everything! But his mother gave the permission and that permission brought tragedy into our lives.

When he called me ‘abba’(father) when returning home after only one year, I couldn’t recognize my ‘Prince’. I was astonished as if looking at a stranger. He was looking very ill and unhealthy! I started crying holding him and yelling to my wife that I don’t need money. I will not let him work anymore.

Like thousands of uneducated parents, I also knew almost nothing about drug use, needles, phensedyl, a codeine medicine, nor addiction. I realized the truth when he started stealing and selling everything we have. He started stealing from our neighbors and everywhere. I thought marrying him off would make everything normal. But nothing worked. We lost our respect, our peace, and our wealth. We lost everything for him. We couldn’t sleep at night. One night he hit me and hit his mother to take money. He was out of control for everything. I tried to control him with my love and anger. But there’s no such thing as control when it comes to addiction. And it takes only one person’s addiction to destroy a whole family. We became more and more worried because he was dying every day. After three years of staying in the village he was just getting worse and he also became the father of a newborn son.

In the middle of one night last year he came into my room. I was very scared seeing him in my room. But in a very mild voice, holding my hand he said; “Abba, please help me; please save my life. My newborn son called me ‘abba’ tonight for the first time.” When my son looks at me he doesn’t see a junkie, he sees his father,He holds my fingers tightly and pleads, “Abba, I want to live!”

‌‘Robi’, my cow, is like another son to me. He has been helping with my farming for the last 4 years. I never wanted to sell him. I don’t know how I will sell this “second son” for saving the life of my other son. I Have not eaten anything since yesterday morning. Whenever I think about selling Robi, I can’t hold back my tears! But I have no other option to save my ill child. I have nothing left for my son’s treatments anymore. I came here to sell my last bit of wealth to continue my son’s treatments. And I want to make it possible for him to be with me during the next Eid Celebration and not in his grave. I want to bring him back from death. I can’t let my child die in front of my eyes!

_Fotik Bepari

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I and my wife, Khalecha always wanted to have a daughter. We married 35 years ago. But every time we had a son. We have four sons and after that we gave up trying for a daughter. My four sons also have four sons which mean I have only four grandsons. Not a single granddaughter!

I am working as a village policeman for the last 30 years. My father, Hossain Ali also was a village policeman. After his death I got this job.I started with 220 taka salary and now my salary is 3200 taka. With this salary it is very difficult to run my family. So I also work in my field when I get free time.
I have great feelings for having a daughter. I lost my mother when I was very young. I wanted a daughter my whole my life so that I can call her “maa”. Maybe that is the reason I have great affection for daughters.

Several times I saved school-going girls from evil teasing by bad boys. One evening while I was coming from the field suddenly I saw a girl running to the river and then she jumped into the river water. For a second I couldn’t think and then in my mind there was only one thing: I had to rescue her. So I dove into the dark water and saved her. Then I took her to her parents’ home. She had fought with her husband and wanted to kill herself.

The next morning I arranged a meeting with both sets of parents and solved their problems. From that day Sheuli has been calling me father. I finally got my daughter after 29 years of waiting!

_Hamidul Islam, 70

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I have been cheated my whole life by my wife. She left me 20 years ago. Every second during these long years afterwards, I have been realizing how badly she cheated me. My only son always yells and complains about me, “Why doesn’t this old man die?”He thinks I don’t hear properly, but I hear! I Always ask God why he doesn’t listen to my prayers and take me to him out of this world?

Last week I was very sick. After several times of calling, my son entered my room in the afternoon. I wanted his help to get down from my bed to eat my lunch. When he held me to get down; I also held onto his shoulder tightly for support. It felt very comforting to me to give my weight to him. I can’t walk properly anymore at the age of100 years. After helping me my son started shouting and yelling again. He was telling his wife, “Never help him to walk; he is just acting and he can walk by himself.” After that, I couldn’t eat.

I remember when my son was only 5 years old. He loved food and was healthy. One day he was crying for some sweets to eat. I took him on my shoulders and walked the entire length of the sand island which is almost 10 miles long, to reach to our village sweetshop to feed him sweets. When he was eating and smiling at me, I forgot how far that whole way was walking in the sand and carrying him on my shoulders.

This world is very selfish. As my wife was.Otherwise, she could never have left me here in this cruel world alone. My wife always used to pray to God, “Please God,take me to you before you take my husband!” I never understood why she did that! I never felt so helpless as I have been feeling these last 20 years after her death. I never knew how ugly and cruel this world was before her death!

My wife betrayed me! She kept a beautiful screen of this world over my eyes all the time. She convinced me how humane this world is. From her, during my whole life, I believed this world was kind and selfless. She never let me know about the ugliness of this world. She betrayed me; because of her I never knew how unkind, selfish, cruel and ugly this world is!

_Nizam Uddin, 100

GMB AKASH

Photojournalist & writer, received over 100 international Awards, speaker at TEDxPorto and TEDxHyderabad.

For more stories and photos please visit:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

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Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

During the past weeks, Bangladesh has been experiencing the consequences of the worst flooding in 100 years which rapidly displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Millions of people are still at risk from the lack of food, clean water, shelter, hygienic facilities, telecommunication, electricity, and usable roads along with the threat of waterborne diseases. Many villages have been cut off completely, marooned and inundated by water. Hundreds of thousands have had major damage to their homes or lost them completely in the flood waters. Thousands of schools have been damaged or re-purposed to shelter flood victims.

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I first headed to the flood affected area of Kurigram where all the villages were under water within three days of flooding and had lost all communication. By the time I reached Gaibandha, the sun was setting. I was surviving in a boat and could not see any ground surface upon which to stand even for a short while. That evening, along with the drowning sun, this village was also drowning under water. People were sheltered above water on the roofs of their formerly intact houses. The moaning of old people and the crying of children were making the atmosphere morose. When I reached the house of Afroza begum I shut my eyes. It took two years to rebuild the house of Khadeza after she sold all her cattle as well as taking out huge loans. I was standing in front of her ruined home; a house which had been rebuilt during the last two years.  I could not reply to her anguish while she was hitting me and asking me why I came to take photos and why no one is helping them. No one came to ask them ever how they are managing to fight against the will of nature. She cursed all those happy people who sat silently and motionless in their homes after hearing the villagers’ tragic news.

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I was on the scene in four rural areas for 5 days last week trying to assist people and working. I was in an almost completely underwater village where people had been trying to live on very limited high ground above the water for the previous 12 days. They were placing themselves along the roads and on whatever they could find to stay above the flood water. They were suffering like deserted prisoners in a devastated water kingdom. Their helpless shouts were not getting into the ears of the rest of the people in the surrounding area, nor into the ears of the rest of the country, nor into those ears around the world.

In all the places I went to, there was flood water but not a single drop of clean drinking water. Even my team and I were facing problems to find clean drinking water and food. Inhabitants were collecting water after walking kilometer after kilometer in waist-deep flood water or by boat because all water tube wells were under water and badly affected by the polluted flood water.

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

Sajeda Begum said, “I am 55 years old but in all my lifetime I have never experienced this kind of devastating flood!” After facing this catastrophic flood this year they are still fighting to stay alive.

After encountering the ravages caused by the force of nature and the bravery of these suffering villagers whose lives were now underwater, I realized that these people, involuntarily separated from the rest of the country, are stronger than most people and could rule over their own lives when necessary. If these courageous people could get even the support of a shoulder of the more fortunate amongst us to cry on, the rest of us could at least claim to be ‘Human’. If they receive some aid from disaster relief entities, it is only then that our society could claim to be a part of ‘Humanity’.

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

Faruk Bepari told me, “Nobody gives us even a single glass of water, not even a small packet of salt. Our children are sick and hungry. Our house went under water; we have been living on part of this elevated road for the last 5 days. We have no one; only God knows what is waiting for us.”

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

Last week, while a village was still in shock from the frenzy of the floods and still wading in deep water, my team and I managed to cook food for 500 flood victims. It was one of the most difficult challenges anyone organising without any infrastructure, to cook for a large number of victims in the worse flood devastated conditions that one could imagine. Everything had to be done on the only surface left above water in that village which was the roof of the village school. It was very difficult to cook and distribute the food because there was no dry place to gather all 500 people. It seemed to be an insurmountable and an almost impossible challenge, but we did it. Everything is possible when we do it from our soul.

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

I listened to the tragic stories of the misery to which the people have been subjected, some of which I am telling you here along with some photographs and a video of our cooking initiative in working together with the villagers in order for them to survive. The reality of the impact of this disaster on these people will certainly melt your heart.

Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / http://www.gmb-akash.com

Dear friends,  my team and I managed to cook food for 500 flood victims. It was one of the most difficult challenges anyone organising or cooking could imagine. Everything had to be done on this single school roof, the only surface left above water. It was very difficult to distribute the food because there was no dry place to gather all 500 people. So it was almost impossible work. But we did it. Everything is possible if we do it from our soul.

Please keep these people and me in your prayers.

GMB AKASH

Photojournalist & writer, received over 100 international Awards, speaker at TEDxPorto and TEDxHyderabad.

For more stories and photos please visit:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

Climate change is the greatest threat to human life. Perhaps it’s even the greatest threat ever in the history of human existence. World temperature is rising at an unprecedented rate, resulting in droughts, sea level rising, forest fires, etc. which are taking place more frequently, impacting our environment and human lives.

Climate change is a global emergency, it’s just that simple to understand and isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a moral one and it’s the time to work together to take action to protect our planet.

We have known for a long time that the climate crisis is threatening our lives badly in every possible way and that it needs to be treated like the emergency it is. Now we need world leaders who believe in science and who should fight to protect our planet for future generations from the dangers of this climate crisis. Educating ourselves on this climate crisis is one of the most important steps in taking action. It’s not yet too late to educate ourselves on the facts of this global climate crisis, my friends. Let’s each do our own part from now on, to protect our planet from further destruction.

Let’s save our precious planet and make it the safest home possible for our future generations. Please, let’s not think, ‘Climate Change’ as an individual problem of any country or nation. This is a global phenomenon. To effectively face this crisis, we have to act as global citizens in every part of the world from now on.

This blog post acts as a prism reflecting callous realities and visual metaphors of the worldwide issues of climate change. Every photograph reveals the bare bones of the impact of climate disasters on populations and environments causing irreversible damage to life as we know it forever.

“Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call ‘global challenges,’ which require global solidarity”

“Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.”

“Sooner or later, we will have to recognize that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans.”

“There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.”

“Due to sea-level rise projected throughout the 21st century and beyond, coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse impacts such as submergence, coastal flooding, and coastal erosion.”

“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.”

“Some species will adapt to new climates. Those that cannot adapt sufficiently fast will decrease in abundance or go extinct in part or all of their ranges.”

“The greatest gift this generation can give future generations is a HEALTHY PLANET.”

“Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life.” – Paul Polman”

“One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliche before it has even been understood”

“The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned.”

GMB AKASH

Photojournalist & writer, received over 100 international Awards, speaker at TEDxPorto and TEDxHyderabad.

For more stories and photos please visit:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

“Sometimes the strongest women are the ones who love beyond all faults, who cry behind closed doors, and who fight battles that nobody knows about. This blog post is dedicated to honouring women who are living at the edge of the society and who continue their fighting to earn food and dignity but who rarely ever come into the world’s limelight. Even the society in which they are living has never appreciated their bravery. I have met with many of them, discovering up close how women have worked for the greater good and have brought about change in their families and society. This is a way to pay tribute to a mother, sister, wife, daughter, friend and the many roles a woman plays in her life. These personalities have taught me that nothing can kill the spirit of a woman and that is what makes her so incredibly beautiful” – GMB Akash

 I am sharing with you few heart-warming real-life stories of Women, Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash

‘We do everything a man does, our working hours are same. But when I went to take my wage the manager gave me 50 taka less than my male coworker. I asked what my mistake was. He shouted on me and said, ‘You did more job than him. But you don’t wear shirt. You are a woman. You will get always less.’ Next day I came to work by wearing a shirt. All man laughed at me. I ignored and asked him to pay me equal as I wore shirt after listening to him. I clearly saw he was hesitating and was afraid of my bravery. But again he said, ‘He will pay all women equal if all of us can wear shirt.’ He gave me a smile like a fox. I lost hope, knowing no one will wear a shirt. Next day when I arrived to field all women were wearing their husband’s shirt on the top of their saree. I never could imagine the manager would be this much afraid of seeing us together. He paid all women equal to men for the first time in his ten years of brick field’s history. From that day girls call me, ‘Hero’. I don’t mind!’

_ Taslima

During my whole life I kept my mouth shut to be a good woman. I accepted my fate and all those abuses my entire life but I never could forgive myself. I was ashamed of myself but I couldn’t tell anyone; when at the age of 4 my mother’s own brother used to touch me in bad ways. My mother believed him and even gave me to him to take care of. I couldn’t fight back when my father’s cousin raped me while coming back from school at the age of 5. Crying in pain I told my elder sister. She said, “Do not tell anyone; people will call you a bad girl!” I couldn’t tell my father that the rickshaw puller he reserved for me for my safety to take me to school put his hands in the wrong places when he helped me to get down from the rickshaw. I Told my mother about it and my mother changed the rickshaw driver but she didn’t share it with my father and told me not to share it with anyone. She said, “People will call you bad!” I never could complain to anyone when my school teacher used to touch my back. I could never forget all the abuses that happened to me. I never used to go in front of my uncles when I became a young woman ever again. I was scared of every man in my life.

Every woman dreams about their wedding and their husband. I was also not different from them. But all my dreams were crushed badly as well as all my expectations when on my wedding night I got raped again by my own drunk husband. Even I couldn’t say anything when he brought his friend to my room one night for money. During my pregnancy I used to pray to God, “Please don’t give me a girl because I know she will have to go through all these things I have been tolerating my whole life. But I became the mother of a girl 10 years ago. I never let her hide from my eyes for a minute. I took her everywhere. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when that night my husband brought a man into my daughter’s room. I started yelling and screaming insanely. All my anger that I had been carrying my whole life came out as my greatest strength. I couldn’t control myself and took the dagger to stab my husband and the man. They both ran away. I complained to the police and for the last year my husband has been in jail. People call me a bad woman. They say that to me because I had my husband put in jail. I don’t feel shame, rather I feel good when they call me a bad woman. It took 32 years to gather the courage to become a bad woman and shout out for my respect and my dignity.

_Nazma Begum

I started working as a labourer a year ago. Including me, there are only ten females working at this site. The constructor does not like to employ women. There are fifty men working besides us. They always get break times to drink tea or smoke cigarettes. But we, the female group never get any breaks. For almost a year, the strongest man of our group has been making fun of us every day. Sometimes he said, he can carry more buckets of stones than the women, even when he sleeps. The contractor laughed loudly at his jokes. And sometimes after transporting all the buckets of stones he showed us his muscle and the men laughed at us. A week ago I asked our contractor to give us at least a half an hour break. He mocked me, pointed to the macho man and openly declared that he would give women equal break time, if I or any other woman could beat the man the next day. I looked at our women’s group and they were looking at the ground. On my way back home, my little girl was warning me never to challenge a man. I asked her why, then my five-year-old girl fearfully showed me her muscle and told me, ‘We don’t have this.’ The next day, when I came to work I told them I was ready to take on the challenge. When I started carrying the buckets of stones beside our macho man, everyone stopped working and started clapping. It turned into some kind of game. I had no idea how time had passed. When the contractor asked me to stop I looked at the man beside me, he was lying on the ground, already very exhausted. Then I saw that I had transported fifty more buckets than him. When every woman was screaming with joy, I looked at my girl and she jumped into my arms. I did not say a word. I had to prove to my little girl that, women too have muscle but they do not like to show it off.

_Aklima

My son, Sahed, continuously cries for milk, but I’m not able to breastfeed him. I have not eaten anything for three days. There is nothing coming from my breasts. I have survived only by drinking water from the roadside ponds.

I delivered my only child in the jungle three days ago. My pain started while fleeing from our house. Shouting from the pain, I collapsed by the roadside. Three women who were also running came forward to help me. They covered me with banana leaves and helped me to give birth to my baby.
For the past two days we have been sitting in a rough, muddy road that runs through a rice field. We become wet from the rain and dry by the hot sunlight of day. There are children and old people everywhere, screaming for food and water. There is nothing to eat. We’ve slept under the open sky for the last nine nights.

When our house was burned to ashes by the Myanmar military, I walked mile-after-mile with my nine-month pregnancy. Everything we carried was taken from us for the river crossing to Bangladesh.I lost track of my husband, Abdul Noor, when we fled. I have no idea if he is alive or not. Maybe he has already been killed by the Myanmar army and my son has already lost his father. Just like he has lost his country.

_Sajeda 25

I gave birth to my youngest daughter eight hours ago. The only midwife on my island was away from our village to a faraway island for a couple of days. My husband spent hours at the midwife’s door in hope for her return. The weather was not good so he also asked for a boat from a neighbor just in case I had to go to hospital in an emergency. My husband started living in fear since I went to the maternity center for a vaccination. Vaccinations are very important for me, I vaccinated all my daughters. That day I also went for a free maternity checkup. I found out the baby is breech and I might need to have an operation. My husband was upset from that day on; even he dreamed many nights that my daughter and I died during her birth. My husband told me, ’You are not as strong as me. I will sell my fishing net and with the money I will arrange for an operation.’ We are very poor; I stopped him from selling the net which brings food for us. I remained calm, because I am stronger than my man, and I had faith in my power, not as woman, but as a mother. Yesterday morning my pain started, I did everything that I do every day. I sent my husband to work and asked him not to panic. I fed our cows, chickens and then I went to the river to get water. I cooked and did some housework. My husband did not return from work as usual though he was supposed to have reached here by that time. At evening time, I served dinner to my daughters and sat with them to explain that they needed to support me as their father had not arrived on time. It was raining heavily outside and my pain was going out of my control. I asked my elder daughter to pour more hot water in the bowl, as I prepared to have water birth. My daughters started crying while circling me, I told them, ‘If I die, tell everyone that your mother was strong enough to fight more than any man’. The midwife arrived just when my baby was crowning. After having brought the midwife, my husband stayed outside as he could not bear to see the pain I had. He entered when my daughter was placed onto my chest. My whole family cried while the new born was crying. We named her, ‘Sukhitan’. Maybe as a woman I cannot do what a man do, but women are not weak; we can do many things that a man cannot do.

_ Fuyara Begum.

I move from place to place; from village to village. Everyone calls me beggar Kulsum. You can call me that too. No one knows from where I have come. I never tell anyone who I am. I had a mansion, surrounded by three ponds and four gardens. It was always hard to fall asleep because the smell of the flowers was so strong at night. Oftentimes I felt heaven was my home. And there was always my supportive husband. Every morning I prepared uncountable cakes for him and he never let me wear the same saree more than a few times. I never allowed my maids to clean inside our private rooms in the house; they were responsible for only other parts and outside buildings of the mansion. I had passed forty-seven years of our married life making cakes, watering trees and wakening up at nights alone when he left for business in faraway places. I got married when I was ten; my husband was the only friend I had. I had passed my married life by making cakes and wandering in our beautiful gardens. My husband never let me feel alone in our childless life. I remained happy in his light. One day I went to see one of my sick maids. There I accidently met a woman who was wearing the same wedding bangle I had. Eventually from my maid I found out that my husband kept his second marriage secret from me for twenty years. There he had two daughters and a son. I spent my nights by looking at his face and realized how much he had loved me. Maybe every day he thought about leaving me; maybe during every festival he wanted to spend his time with his new family; maybe he felt guilty when I put my right hand every night on his chest. Because he had loved me and I was his only friend too at one time, I wanted him to be happy without regret. I also wanted a happy memory of my very loving husband with our all ponds and gardens. I convinced one of my loyal maids to spread the news that I accidentally fell in the river and was swept away. She did it as an exchange for all my gold ornaments. You are talking to dead Umme Kulsum. She died twenty years ago. No one cried for her; neither did I. Sometimes people ask me what they should do when I will die and what my last wish is. I have told no one before you. If ever he arrives searching for me tell him I missed our home, gardens and him every single second of my life. But I wanted him to be free from my love. His happiness is what I wanted even if it required letting go of my former life. And I do not regret what I had done. Sometimes in love you have to leave.

_Umme Kulsum

We five sisters are the heart of our father. I am the third child of my father and he thought I was very useless. But I know he loves me the most because I am very fond of him. After marrying off my two elder sisters, my father only had me to rely upon for keeping his money safe, preparing betel leaf for him, giving him the towel when he goes to the shower and every other household chore. My other two sisters were very young. My father used to search for me by calling out, “Where is my tail?” This is because he thought he is the ‘body’ and I was the unbreakable useless part of him, ‘the tail’.

But I had to leave my ‘body’ one day. That day, when I went to Dhaka in search of work and money, leaving ‘my body’, I didn’t cry at all. How could I cry? My responsibility was more important to me than crying.

I remembered that oftentimes in our family home before going to sleep in our room, I used to hear my father telling my mother with his mellow voice, “I wish we had a son then he could earn money for us. I am getting older and sicker day after day. Who will take care of you all?” One night he started crying loudly and said, “My daughters have become my pain and my main burden now. How will I arrange marriages for all of them? I am a poor farmer.” That night I cried the whole night; the whole night I could not sleep. I promised myself that I will take all the responsibilities of my family. I promised I will never get married before I arrange marriages for my sisters and give a better life to my parents.

I started working at Dhaka in a factory and sent money to my father every month for my family and tried to save some money. During those years my father tried to marry me off. He used to make up various issues to call me home. Every time before going home I used to shave my head so that the groom would not like me.

I left Dhaka after 3 years and bought three milking cows with baby calves and started farming at our house. In our village no girls herded cows or goats. Everyone started talking nonsense about me but I didn’t listen to anyone. Why should I stop? I promised myself that I will prove to my father that if you give opportunities and inspiration to a daughter, she can do anything that a son can do.
In the next four years from the six cows we then had 14 cows and 4 calves. I sell milk every day and cows every year during Eid season. My two younger sisters started working with me. On my farm now 3 other girls are also working from our village.

I built a new house for my parents. I took my mother to Dhaka for her eye operation.

My father is very proud of me nowadays. He always keeps telling everybody of our village “daughters are blessings. I am fortunate I have daughters. They are mothers in your old age. If you believe in your daughters, they can do anything. You don’t always need sons for being proud and privileged but you do need a daughter like my Rotna .”

_Rotna

My sister is 3 years older than me and I fit into all her dresses. But she never allows me to wear her clothes or touch her creams, oils or makeup. However, last summer for my cousin’s wedding she gave her only new red dress to me to wear and she decorated my hair with her new ribbon that she had never used before. Because we had only one new dress for both of us, only I could attend the wedding.

My sister was always very suspicious about all my work! She always interfered in everything I did. I often used to hide myself from her and yelled at her whenever she wanted to know what I was doing or what was happening in my life! She thought that whenever I do something, I do it wrong. I was so disturbed by her behavior of interfering in my life that I used to pray for her to disappear off the face of the earth. My sister kept poking me about everything and I yelled at her silently.

This was the relationship between us before the day when I saw her cleaning the yard of our school. That day I felt so ashamed and humiliated in front of all my classmates. They were making fun of her and bullying her saying she is ‘a cleaner’ and I am a ‘cleaner’s sister’. I ran to the washroom to hide my tears and stayed there till school finished for that day.

That afternoon I went back home and very furiously asked my mother “why she suddenly started cleaning the school and why people are making fun of me?” My mother slapped me very hard and said, “She left her schooling for you and took the cleaner’s job at the school so that you can continue your education without paying any more. That moment when I felt the slap, it did not hurt me as much as those words did!

The next morning when I went to school, I saw she had started cleaning the yard. When my friends started making fun of her again, I went directly to the library room and took the extra broom and started cleaning the yard beside her! After that day I never cared about what people thought but I cared about my sister who cares so much about me.

Now every day for the last six months I help my sister to clean the school yard. So it takes less time to finish the work and when she finishes she can help my mother. I started to work here six months ago in the brickfield with my father but only on the weekends. And I don’t give a single taka to my parents. Everyone asks what I will do with this money. I don’t answer. Please don’t share this with my sister; I am accumulating this money to buy a red beautiful saree for her wedding. She is my biggest enemy but the one enemy I can’t live without.

_ Nilufa

Prostitutes don’t expect love in return from anyone. I also don’t expect it. From the very beginning of this life we learn how to live life without being loved back. But for the last 14 days I have been feeling very compassionate for this sick monkey…. I feel that he is far better than any social human being I ever met. This innocent creature even understands love and compassion and can love you back.

I bought this monkey from a street magician two weeks ago because he was looking so sick and the magician was forcefully making him dance and play. It was hurting me so badly that I started quarrelling with that man and wanted to buy his monkey. He was not agreeing to sell his money-making monkey. But I was also not a girl to let the poor monkey suffer. So the man asked for a big amount of money and he thought it would make me leave him because I am a poor prostitute. I told him to sit for a minute and without thinking for a second, I took all my money from my trunk which I had accumulated in the last 3 years making my blood into sweat so that I could get rid of this hell.

I finally could save my baby monkey. Everyone laughed at me and called me crazy but no one will ever understand the satisfaction that I feel. I am feeding him healthily and taking care of him for the last 14 days to make him well. I decided I will leave him in a jungle far from this concrete jungle. I know a prostitute can never be free and live her life in the society of the good people but I believe this monkey can live happily in his jungle

_ Beauty

When my son brought Sultana home, everyone was angry. No one was ready to accept her. I looked at the face of my daughter-in-law and saw she had no innocence; there was maturity and bravery. My daughters, husband and everyone of my place started warning me how dangerous the girl can be. The day she arrived at home, my kitchen caught on fire because my saree fell into the stove. Everyone was screaming when Sultana brought sand in a bucket and threw it all over the place. She slightly burned her hands but stopped the fire. My daughters were telling me it was a bad omen; they said the new bride created the fire. I stopped them and explained how bravely she saved us. She won my heart in the first place. But no one liked her because Sultana came from the kind of family who can count how many times they eat fish or meat in a year. My husband told me what a loss it was to get a daughter-in-law whose parents could never feed us even once. I asked him why he always dislikes her. He told me because she is black and poor. I told him I am black and my own family is still poor. I asked him if he also thinks I am worthless. I did not listen to anyone because there she was with all her heart and labour pouring happiness into my house.

But after three years there was no child. Everyone had a valid reason to send her off to her parents’ house. But I was there, standing in front of her so no criticism nor bad talk could affect her. But I saw she was suffering badly because of the need for a child. She stopped smiling. One day I called her in the morning and we got ready together and told everyone we were going to my sister’s place. I lied to everyone. We went to the community clinic, and there she received treatment. After six months my daughter-in-law conceived. When my grandson was about to be born my daughter-in-law told me if something happened to her, I should never let the child be given to any other woman. I was there beside her the entire time; I did not say a word without praying. My daughter-in-law survived bravely and gifted me this beautiful grandson.

It’s been forty years that I’ve been working and every inch of my body hurts every minute. But the money I earn is important for my sick husband and family. I hardly have time to play with any of my grandchildren. Some days ago Sultana told me she got a new job for me and for her. I asked her what they were. She handed over my grandson to me and told me that looking after him and playing with him is my new job. I smiled and said, we need money to run our family. And then she showed me a card. I cannot read as I never went to school so she explained to me that she took a job in a garments factory and now I can retire. It’s been a few days since she started working. Yesterday I resigned from my labourer job. From early morning I have been feeling like a child as I do not know how this long day will pass. Whenever my grandson is laughing and playing with me, this brings tears to my eyes. I needed this rest; I badly needed to take a break. And no one understood it except my daughter-in-law who is worthless in everyone’s eyes but mine. She is becoming like my mother.

_Momena (60)

‘I lost many things in my life and by standing at the end of my life, now I can tell you, how I gained everything what I had lost.

My husband died when during flood, a tree had fallen on him. I was standing just ten feet away from him in water. That night, I was seven months pregnant. After losing my husband, my house and everything I had, I felt to commit suicide. But I became mother after waiting for twelve years for a child. I had to survive for my child, so I came to city to search for work. After so many struggles I gave birth to my son, midwife told me, my son had problem and asked me to be prepared for his death. When he died after seven days, I had no one beside me and had no money. Even if you die you need money but no one came forward to help me. Only some orphan-street children gave me money, so I could do his last work. After buried him when I return to my hut, I didn’t cry. From that day, I no longer look behind what I had lost. Since the day, for thirty years, I had feed one orphan each day from my food. I lost my child but I kept giving the portion of his love to every miserable child I met on my way.

Last five years, I am suffering from tuberculosis and heart problems. Now all those orphan children grew up and taking care of me. I lost one child but now I have hundred’

_Maa Asha

It took two days to give birth to my son. After his birth, the midwife told me my boy was dead. I could not let her take my baby. I was holding him to my chest and after a few minutes he started to cry. I named him Ibrahim. He was born after my fifth stillbirth. I never let him go out of my sight for a moment. I took his promise every night before he went to sleep: a promise that he would always enable me to hold my head up. When he was fifteen, he started writing poetry secretly. I do not know how to read or write. But a mother does not need to read anything; I could see by his eyes that he was in love. I wanted him to settle soon; wanted to see a house full of my grandchildren. Then the war started. I did not let my son leave me alone for a moment. I wanted to go somewhere where no military could come. That day when we were about to leave our village, I was finishing my prayers.

My son left me without saying anything. I quickly checked his poetry book and saw that it was missing. He was gone with his poems. For four months, I waited in my empty house for his return. People advised me to leave with my life. The whole village left without me. I did not escape. A mother of a freedom fighter cannot be weak. I knew he had to come back to me. Because I had no one other than him. Because he had to write more poetry for the girl who I knew nothing about. I inhaled the odor of my son’s shirt and keep waiting for him. Then one night, a young fighter came with Ibrahim’s poetry book. Ibrahim had died willingly while enabling their bravest fighters escape. His last operation was not successful, and a bomb took his life. They did not get any parts of his body. His friend handed me that diary which he left in the shelter. It had blood in the corner. I inhaled the smell of the blood of my son. I opened and touched a few pages. I did not cry at that moment; I did not want the freedom fighter who stood beside me to think I was weak. I requested him to read the last page of the diary. He read slowly, ‘Maa, I will never cause you to put your head down, I promise.’

_Jebunessa Begum

My husband was an angel to me! He brought me here 50 years ago to avoid the bad mouthing I had to listen from the villagers every day!

I have no one in this world. My husband was everything to me. Before his death, he always used to ask me, “What would you do after my death? How you will live?” I never realized how much I had to suffer when he is no longer here. Now, I understand, how he had protected me like an umbrella my whole life! Even the day before his death he worked because of me!

Death is what sets my 50 years of love and relationship apart! Many people advise me to beg, so I can easily earn much more money than I earn working here so hard every day.

I begged my whole life! When my parents died and I had to live with my uncle, I used to beg to God to release me from my uncle’s house! I had to beg my husband to resist my mother-in-law when she wanted to re-marry my husband because of my childlessness!

I had to beg my whole life! I begged for a husband, I begged for children, I begged for safety and I begged for my dignity!
But I cannot beg for money! No no, I cannot hold my head up with my hands out! Hard work does not give me pain but indignity does!

I got married at a very young age! I could not learn anything from my family but I learned everything from my husband! He was a very enlightened man with unlimited love and respect for me. I learned from him how to hold my head high.

While other young women who work beside me can carry 12 bricks at a time, I can hardly carry 6 or even 4. But I am grateful to Allah that he still gives me strength to work so I can feed myself. I can earn money to survive and I don’t have to beg!

If my husband had been able to work until the day before his death, then I can too!
I get strength from my husband and respect, love and dignity from my hard work, some things which begging for money never can give me!

_Banu_65

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GMB Akash 

Photojournalist and Profile Photographer at Panos Pictures, London

Founder of GMB Akash Institute of Photography, Dhaka

TEDxHyderabad:https://youtu.be/sXbmBCzgy8A

TEDxYouth:https://youtu.be/rLG7sPs6MkU

Website: www.gmb-akash.com

Photo Agency: www.panos.co.uk

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/gmbakash

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Blog: www.gmbakash.wordpress.com

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash

For some people life is full of insurmountable challenges. Their lives ensure that they only have access to receive less than the minimum of life’s essentials and they cannot possibly miss any of their labour tasks and still survive. Just standing in one place which appears even more minimalist with just a few machines and the machine’s human operators. There is only one slow fan, one dirty window and a room full of dusty air, dirty smoke and toxic fuel, all these contribute immediately to one’s feeling of ‘suffocation’.  Those compact factories create an illusion for me which shows me simple production, but with genius and strength, Our perception tells us that ‘Artists’ create masterpieces, but day workers are only viewed as replicating manual production. The only thing in common that we see for artists and day workers is perhaps their dedication.

People who live on the margins of society with only the hope of living a bare life with only the minimum essentials,  and hopefully still being capable of feeding a family. The economy that runs in air-conditioned chambers are operating at their finest since there are thousands of hands in the backyards which hardly ever stop. These labourers do not have any dress code but at the end of the day, their attire and appearance  is all the same. They are black-grey skinned, dusky-dirty. Deprived of even life’s barest necessities, these people still manage to live each day with a smile on their face. They are the ‘day labourers’, but to me they are human beings of worth. Humans of worth for all the goodwill they’ve given to society without expecting anything; neither name, nor fame, nor sufficient money.

This World Labour Day has special significance for all of us. However, especially during this pandemic, these impoverished day labourers are the ones who are suffering the most by living on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

It’s #TimeToCare and to thank our hard-working invisible day workers by doing whatever we can, starting today while we celebrate this Labour Day.  #worldlabourday2020

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

© GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

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GMB Akash 

Photojournalist and Profile Photographer at Panos Pictures, London

Founder of GMB Akash Institute of Photography, Dhaka

TEDxHyderabad:https://youtu.be/sXbmBCzgy8A

TEDxYouth:https://youtu.be/rLG7sPs6MkU

Website: www.gmb-akash.com

Photo Agency: www.panos.co.uk

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/gmbakash

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Blog: www.gmbakash.wordpress.com

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash

Bhutan has continually been ranked as the happiest country in all of Asia, and the eighth Happiest Country in the world.

Bhutan does not believe in GDP as an indicator of economic growth and development. It has introduced another measurement known as Gross National Happiness.

Bhutan, the Land of Thunder Dragon, is one of the most intriguing places I’ve visited.

– Bhutan is truly a feast for the eyes.

A tribute to Kingdom of Bhutan

Bhutan is the only country in the world that is carbon negative – meaning that it absorbs more carbon dioxide than it emits.

Bhutan is the only country in the world that has no traffic lights.

The United Nations recognized Bhutan as a country only in 1974.

Plastic bags are banned in Bhutan.

Education and healthcare is free for all citizens.

Bhutan is the first country in the world to ban tobacco.

Bhutan is one of the last countries in the world to introduce television to its people. The government lifted a ban on TV—and on the Internet—only 11 years ago.

One-third of Bhutan’s population is under the age of 14; its median age is 22.3 years.

Isolated from the World Until The 1970s.

Bhutanese call their home “Druk Yul,” which means “the Land of the Thunder Dragons,” because of the extremely powerful storms which constantly roar in from the Himalayas.

The first foreign tourists were allowed into Bhutan in 1974.

Bhutan is a Buddhist country with strong beliefs.

Bhutan is famous for its colorful, vibrant festivals.

Bhutan has never been conquered.

It is mandatory for the Bhutanese to wear their national costume.

It is Illegal to Kill Anything.

All of Bhutan’s buildings must follow the traditional architectural style.

——————-

GMB Akash 

Photojournalist and Profile Photographer at Panos Pictures, London

Founder of GMB Akash Institute of Photography, Dhaka

TEDxHyderabad:https://youtu.be/sXbmBCzgy8A

TEDxYouth:https://youtu.be/rLG7sPs6MkU

Website: www.gmb-akash.com

Photo Agency: www.panos.co.uk

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/gmbakash

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Blog: www.gmbakash.wordpress.com

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash

There are an estimated 152 million children in child labour, 72 million of which are in hazardous work.

Child labour in Bangladesh is common, with 4.8 million or 12.6% of children aged 5 to 14 in the work force.

No one has the time to listen to these unfortunate children who are mostly unseen humans beings. I always wanted to deliver their voices to all of you and show you their hidden pain and anguish. I tell their stories, depict their emotions, and steal their sorrows into my frames…

On the occasion of #WorldDayAgainstChildLabour let us Pledge to Secure the Future of our Children.

Let them Learn, Not Earn.

At the age where they should play and study, they are earning to fill their Stomachs!

No one deserves this childhood!

The COVID-19 health pandemic and the resulting economic and labour market shock are having a huge impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, children are often the first to suffer. The crisis can push millions of vulnerable children into child labour.

Can you exchange a day with your own child in the place of these children? Can you deposit your children’s labor in such a place for a day in return for $1. If you can’t, can you please do something for these children? “Wishing to help” is an excuse. Shame is a mild word to what we are overlooking. May our spirits wake up?

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GMB Akash 

Photojournalist and Profile Photographer at Panos Pictures, London

Founder of GMB Akash Institute of Photography, Dhaka

TEDxHyderabad:https://youtu.be/sXbmBCzgy8A

TEDxYouth:https://youtu.be/rLG7sPs6MkU

Website: www.gmb-akash.com

Photo Agency: www.panos.co.uk

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/gmbakash

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Blog: www.gmbakash.wordpress.com

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash

I have spent years documenting refugees and their children. In recent years I have been interviewing and photographing the tragedies of the families escaping for their lives to Greece from the Middle East as well as the desperate Rohingya and Bihari refugees escaping to Bangladesh from border countries.

To closely experience their lives as well as to help and speak with the families. I spent nights awake in Lesbos Greece waiting for dilapidated and overloaded boats to arrive from Turkey. Sometimes the boats never made it. I walked hundreds of kilometers along with the refugees while they were trying to cross the border out of Greece. In between, I was in their camps, shelters and anywhere they were, trying to discover their pain, suffering, and anguish that refugees must face.

My experiences were eye-opening, tragic, sad, terrifying, and oftentimes shocking.

You can do your part by SHARING THIS post about millions of refugees who need support.

Plight of Rohingya Refugees

More than 24,000 Rohingya were killed by the Myanmar military and local Buddhists. It also estimated that at least 18,000 Rohingya Muslim women and girls were raped, 36,000 Rohingya were thrown into fire.

The Refugee Crisis in Greece

As of December 7, 2015, more than 911,000 refugees and migrants had arrived on European shores since the year began and some 3,550 lives had been lost during the journey. Over 75 per cent of those arriving in Europe had fled conflict and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq.

The civil war in Syria has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises of our lifetime.

The neglected ‘Bihari’ community in Bangladesh

While the international community is focused on the plight of Rohingya refugees, not many in the world are aware of the ordeal of Bihari Muslims who migrated from India in 1947.

This is not just a story of poverty and despair. This is the story of a community of over one hundred sixty thousand stateless Biharis who have lived like animals for the last 40 years.

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GMB Akash 

Photojournalist and Profile Photographer at Panos Pictures, London

Founder of GMB Akash Institute of Photography, Dhaka

TEDxHyderabad:https://youtu.be/sXbmBCzgy8A

TEDxYouth:https://youtu.be/rLG7sPs6MkU

Website: www.gmb-akash.com

Photo Agency: www.panos.co.uk

Photography Workshop: www.gmbakashworkshop.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/gmbakash

Instagram: www.instagram.com/gmbakash

Blog: www.gmbakash.wordpress.com

Twitter:www.twitter.com/GmbAkash