Poverty landed two sisters in the factory

Two minor sisters are fighting for life at Dhaka Medical College Hospital with burns from Tuesday's fire at a factory in Ashulia. They came to Dhaka just one and a half months ago from Manikganj to work, to shoulder the expenses of their family. 

At the hospital's burn unit yesterday, the mother seemed dumbstruck sitting beside her daughters -- Lovely Akter who suffered 30 percent burns and Fatema Akter 20 percent burns. 

The Daily Star could talk to their eldest sister Bilkis Akter who was running around to make necessary arrangements for their treatment.

Bilkis said her father who worked as a security guard died five years ago. Before his death he married her off. 

Immediately after marriage, she took a job at a garments factory and began sending Tk 3,000 to Tk 4,000 to her mother to run the family.

Her three younger sisters were going to school at the time. As the sisters grew up, the family began struggling to meet the expenses with the meagre amount that Bilkis sent home. 

Seventeen-year-old Lovely and 15-year-old Fatema then decided to give up education and work instead to share the family's burden. The youngest sister is 10-year-old.

Since Lovely and Fatema were underage, they were refused jobs at garments factories, Bilkis said. Finally, they got work at the gas lighter factory on the outskirts of the capital last month, which would pay them Tk 4,500 a month each.  

The teenage girls had been working 12 hours a day but still they were happy that their income would ease the sufferings of the family, Bilkis said. 

This month they managed to send their mother Sajia Begum Tk 5,500 from their half month's salary.

Without any land and husband, the family began to hope for days somewhat better than the days gone when the news of fire came as a blow to Sajia. She was unable to talk yesterday.

Bilkis said she resigned to attend to her sisters since her employer forbade her from going on leave. She could not talk to her sisters as their faces and eyes were swollen.

At least 26 female workers sustained burn injuries, many of them critically, in the fire that broke out at Colour Match BD Ltd in Girabo area on November 22.