Pavement dwellers 'special category' of urban poor

All concerned stakeholders should recognise pavement dwellers as a 'special category' of the urban poor, recommended two anthropology professors after a five-month study on pavement dwellers in the city yesterday.
Dr SM Nurul Alam and Dr Siddiqur Rahman of Jahangirnagar University conducted the study on 173 pavement dwellers living on nine spots from January to May this year under the project of 'Amrao Manush' (we are humans too).
The baseline study revealed that pavement dwellers belong to the lowest tier of the poverty spectrum and are deprived of basic citizens' rights.
Drug addiction is getting worse among adult and child pavement dwellers and drug dealers often use children as drug carriers. Eviction and harassment by law enforcers pose serious threats to them, the findings claimed.
Dr SM Nurul Alam presented the outcome of the study at a press conference organised by Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP) at the National Press Club.
The researchers also recommended that income-generating opportunities be increased in rural areas to reduce the trend of migration to urban areas.
The findings showed pavement dwellers are involved in 14 types of occupations and switching to other occupations is common, as there is no occupational security.
The dwellers face a number of problems, including sleeping disturbance, toilet problem, cooking and availability of water.
The dwellers choose pavements because they cannot afford to rented residence, do not have any place to live and proximity to their workplaces, said the study.
Bangladesh chapter of Concern Worldwide started the five-year project in 2008 for the development of pavement dwellers in Dhaka city. Four NGOs and Dhaka City Corporation are also involved in the project.
Since its beginning, the project has enrolled 6,768 pavement dwellers and providing them with different services, including space for sleeping, cooking, medical treatment and non-formal education, to pavement children.
Country Director of Concern Worldwide Kieron Crawley, Mostafa Kaiyum Khan of CUP and Khandaker Millatul Islam of DCC also spoke at the programme.