The Street Hawker

                 Street Hawker in Bangladesh

The number of street vendors in Bangladesh is large. Dhaka

is the capital of Bangladesh and also its largest city. According

to the Dhaka City Corporation there are around 90,000 street

vendors in the city.1 They operate mainly in Motijheel, Baitul

Mukarram, Gulistan, Shahbagh and New Market Areas. Street

vending is considered an illegal trade and the street vendors face

constant harassment from the authorities. The vendors have to

pay a sizeable part of their income as bribes in order to keep

plying their trade. According to one report,2 vendors in the New

Market area pay Tk 2,00,000 a month to a gang that shares the

collection with the law-enforcement agency. Each vendor in this

area pays around Tk 200 a month to run their business. In other

areas such as Baitul Mukarram, GPO and Purana Paltan vendors

pay the police Tk 5 daily to avoid harassment.

According to the Bangladeshi delegates who had attended the

Asian Regional Workshop on Street Vendors held on February

10-12, 2002 in Bodh Gaya, India,3 the street vendors of Bangladesh

were more vulnerable than those in the neighbouring countries

due to poverty, lack of space for vending and lack of awareness

about their rights. The positive aspect is that there is a fair level

of unionisation among them. There are several unions working

among street vendors. The most important is the Bangladesh

Hawkers’ Federation as it is linked to the trade union federation

of the ruling Bangladesh National Party. The federation has been

negotiating with the government for a policy on street vendors.

The first step towards this direction is of forging alliances with

other trade unions of street vendors so that a national alliance

emerges. This can in turn pressurise the government to take up

the issue of a national policy for street vendors. However till

such a consensus emerges, the street vendors in Bangladesh will

constitute a major section of food vendors in Dhaka, the male

vendors depend on the women in their household for preparing

the items for sale.

The study notes that street food effectively meets the requirements

of a large section of the economically active urban population.

At the same time the vendors are frequently victimised

by the police, public health institutions, local government authorities

etc. They are also denied institutional credit facilities

that could help them increase their income. They have to rely

exclusively on social networks for running their business.

See:  www.wiego.org/.../4_Bhowmik_Asian_Hawkers_EPW.pdf