Can WASH help to reduce the child marriage?

Md. Firoj Alam
WASH Officer, UNICEF Bangladesh

There are 33.9 million adolescents, representing 30% of the total Bangladesh population[1]. It is a big challenge for the country to ensure adolescent development and build them as agent of change to contribute for the country. Sex and gender differences emerge most sharply with the onset of puberty, affecting the life trajectories of girls and boys in profoundly different ways. History shows that, adolescent girls and young women have less opportunity and fewer resources than young men: less food, schooling and medical attention, less access to paid employment and less free time, along with a strong possibility to be married off before the age of eighteen. When puberty signals their potential for motherhood, girls may have to drop out of schools to marry and begin childbearing (USAID Youth Policy, 2012).

In Bangladesh, 62.8% of women age 20-49 yrs. married before the age of 18 while 61.45% in Dhaka division and 81.9 % in Jamalpur. A UNICEF study, “The State of the World’s Children 2011: Adolescents – An age of Opportunity (February, 2011)” indicates that in adolescence, the generally-defined transition period between puberty and legal adulthood (ages 10-19), female school drop-out rates are strongly related to not allowing girls leave their home unaccompanied, being subject to sexual harassment, physical and psychological violence (e.g. stalking) and child marriage. In this patriarchal society, gender inequality is prevalent, disparity in rights and responsibilities between boys and girls are enormous.[2] The dropout rate for girls in secondary level is much higher than that of boys which 16% and 10% respectively. Furthermore, adolescents with disabilities are often subject to greater inequalities and less access to services than their peers without disabilities; and for adolescent girls with disabilities this discrimination is often exacerbated and the risks of sexual abuse heightened.

According to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), 100 million girls will be married before the age of 18 in the coming decade. Most will be in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asian Subcontinent (Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). In Niger, for example, 77% of women in their early 20s were married as children. In Bangladesh, it is 65%. Child marriage also occurs in parts of the Middle East, including Yemen and the rural Maghreb.

Globally, according to UNICEF, 36% of women aged 20-24 were married or in a union, forced or consensual, before they'd reached 18. An estimated 14 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19 give birth each year. They are twice as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth as women in their 20s. Girls who marry between the ages of 10 and 14 are five times as likely to die during pregnancy6 or childbirth as women in their early 20s.

The effect of the child marriage is enormous. I assume most of us are aware of it.  What is still unclear is all of the causes that fosters the child marriage in Bangladesh. There are some prominent causes recognized by all like poverty, lack of education, dowry, religious inspiration, social insecurities etc. Again, there are some causes which are really existing but not recognized in Bangladesh as a cause.  

The psycho-physical aspects like biological need, emotional aspects etc. falls in this category. There are, also some causes which is neither recognized, nor unrecognized but influences the issue silently. WASH is such an issue that has a great impact on the child marriage in Bangladesh. Let me elaborate the issue here under.

In Bangladesh, the rate of child marriage is higher among the poorest section of the population. Insecurity is the cause of all causes here. Insecurities appear to the poor people in many form. First they are worried about the basic physical need like food, shelter, cloth treatment etc. Secondly, they are similarly concerned about their dignity and respect in the society. When, they are the parents of a girl-child their feeling of insecurity increases in many folds. On the one hand there is a very less scope for income generation for women in the country, on the other there is a fear to be abused everywhere. The fear of abusing is very high and sensitive for the girls. And, the lack of WASH facilities open another window of fear. Let me shade on this point.

Due to the lack of toilets and bathing facilities women choose to go out for defecation and bathing at night and often faces the rape, abuse and sexual harassment. So far I know, no research has been conducted to know exactly how many women and adolescent girls are sexually abused when they go to respond the natural call or go outside of the house for having a bath. The anecdotal evidences and reports of the newspapers give an indication that the number is huge.

Recently a report from India published in a Bangla newspaper has caught sight of my eyes. The report says that 32% women in West Bengal are abused sexually when they go out for defecation. Culturally and geographically West Bangal and Bangladesh are not staying far. I assume, the similar situation is prevailing in Bangladesh.

May be, the results are manifesting in different shape: a huge incidents of child marriage in Bangladesh.

The incidents sexual harassments, abuse and rape are really perilous when it happens to the girl child of any ages. On the one hand it traumatizes the parents and the victim, on the other hand the fear of losing social status grippes the both. The social and religious psychology of the people of Bangladesh are to keep a girl protected from the touch of others, at least up to the time of marriage.

The WASH interventions can directly and indirectly contribute to prevent the child marriage.  As I mentioned earlier, dignity to life, privacy and security are some of the prominent causes for child marriage. And, WASH can play a good role to eliminate these causes.

WASH Interventions should have to be taken in two levels, i,e, in community  and schools. In community, priority should be given to the families who are hardcore poor and having girls. For the school level interventions the secondary schools should be targeted. Compared to the primary schools, the WASH situation is worst in the secondary schools.  As the students in the secondary school belong to the age group 11-16, they need menstrual hygiene management facilities in the schools/toilets. It is evident that the better coverage of WASH facilities in the schools reduces the drop-out rate. It is also a fact that the girls who continue their education have the less likelihood to get married early.

Incidents of rape and abuse often occur when the girls go out for defecation and bathing. It creates a feeling of insecurity among the parents of the girl child in Bangladesh (anecdotal information). This fear of insecurity compels parents; especially the poor parents to give marry their girl child as soon as possible. The lack of toilets adjacent to the house and distanced bathing place (pond/canal/ tube well) hinder the privacy of the girls. It also affects their dignity to life and parents seek a solution of that in a marriage. The arrangement of bathing space, toilet facilities and water supply adjacent/attached to the house of the families, therefore will have direct impact in reducing the child marriage.

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[1] www.unfpa-bangladesh.org/php/thematic.youth.php

 

Water and Waste Mangement

Md. Firoj Alam
17 March 2015

“Water and Sustainable Development” is the theme of the World Water Day 2015.  The theme of this years no doubt is very relevant and significant as the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) is going to be finalized at the end of the MDG (Millennium Development Goal) this year.

There are many products and by-products of development. Waste is one of the obvious by products of it. Without creating waste, it is very difficult to make the development happening and continuing. In the plain word we can say, “The more you get developed, the more you produce waste”. Many countries, especially the countries which are doing rapid economic growth are already in trouble to deal the waste created in their development process. The developed countries has chosen to incinerate waste to get rid of it but it pollutes air. They are actually internationalizing their own /local problem, while the developing countries are using the waste mostly for landfilling and pollutes their land, air and water at a time. In this article I would like to shade a bit of light on the water pollution, particularly the ground water pollution caused mostly by our improper waste management.

Water is one of our most important natural resources which we have a plenty in quantity though it is poor in quality. This is why we are living with abundance and scarcity of water at the same time. We are spoiling our water knowingly and unknowingly every day. Neither ground water, nor the surface water is spared from the contamination. The pollution of surface water is very much visible to us and we often discuss about it. Contrarily, the ground water on which we are depending fully for our daily consumption is getting contaminated every day and it is remaining unnoticed to us generally.

One of the unnoticed contaminants of our ground water is the municipality waste. Let me elaborate this area a bit. In Bangladesh there is no well managed waste disposal system, let alone a complete waste management for the towns. So far what the municipal authorities are doing is just dumping the waste in an open place close to the towns which is often situated very close to the localities. In professional language it is called “non-sanitary landfill”. Examples are many of this in and around Dhaka city, divisional and district towns.

The wastes in our country are mostly green waste: bio degradable waste. However the share of hazardous and non-bio degradable waste is also huge. As the numbers of population is very high and the concentration of population is highest in our country in the world we produce a huge amount of waste daily though the per capita waste is very low here compare to the developed countries. The waste in the dumping sites produces a lot of methane that contributes to the global warming.  Global warming potentials (GWP) of methane gas is 21 times higher than the carbon-di-oxide which contributes 12% of our total greenhouse gas emission. I am leaving the methane emission issue here as it is not an issue of my today’s discussion. Let’s come back to the ground water pollution.

The non-sanitary landfill is very dangerous because other than producing methane it produces a huge amount of liquid called leachate. Leachate is just a soup of bacteria, chemical elements and particles of heavy metals. This leachate percolates down to the ground water quickly and travels far through the aquifer and contaminates our safe water which we are extracting through the tube-wells and using for drinking and cooking. In Bangladesh we sometimes test the arsenic in the ground water and we seldom look into the other chemical and biological parameters. There is every possibility of having heavy presence of chemical and biological pollutants in the ground water where the dumping sites are!

Bangladesh is called a graveyard of tube-wells. After identification of arsenic in the ground water many tube-wells were abandoned immediately by the users. The pumps of the tube-wells have been taken away and left the well redundant. These wells are just uncapped, open I would say rather. The opened tube-wells have the every possibility to contaminate our precious ground water as contaminant can easily pass to the ground through the boreholes. Many of the boreholes are located inside the industrial premises with a high likelihood of contaminating the ground water with chemical and bio-logical effluents of the industries.

We the users are just unaware about the risk of contamination that may occur through the redundant tube-wells. We simply leave the non-functioning tube-wells uncapped and allow the pollutants to reach up to the ground water. As per an estimation, there are about 10 million tube-wells in Bangladesh. The number of the redundant tube-wells is very high, we can assume from this data.

Neither in the urban area nor in the rural area we have appropriate faecal sludge management system. The sewerage lines of the municipalities in most cases are opened onto the rivers or waterbodies while the open toilets are contaminating surface water years after years.  In last three decades we have achieved a good coverage in terms of use of improved latrines. Different sources show that about 80% of our population is now using latrine.  Bangladesh has done a better progress than many countries in the world in this regard. We are proud of it. However, most of these latrines are just a pit latrine in type. It is constructed by the people using very basic technology.  It is true that it can confine the faecal matter in a fixed place and can prevent the pathogens to come out in the open environment but it has also created a high risk of contaminating the ground water especially in those areas where water table is high. I know for sure from a study done in an island of Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh that pathogens escaping from the toilets pit had contaminated total source of ground water there. Now it is really a time to teach the people how to seal the toilet pits to protect the ground water from the pathogens of the faeces.

Our ground water is already in a severe stress as the natural pollutant like arsenic, salinity and iron are found in many areas. The over extraction of ground water is causing the depletion of aquifer in the rural and urban areas including Dhaka city. Our surface water is already so contaminated that it is almost irrecoverable through treatment. If we go on contaminating our water in such a pace, we will have to import safe water from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar in future to meet our daily demand. I am sure, none of us are ready for that!

Md. Firoj Alam is a Water Sanitation and Hygiene Officer of a UN agency in Bangladesh.

 

Water Act 2010: Whose benifit counts

Md. Firoj Alam

Land, air, water and sun are the most essential elements for life. In absence of one of these elements life is just impossible on the earth. All other living entities in this planet gratefully enjoy this gift of the nature. But, we the human being want to grab it for personal interest. Grabbing something absolutely for self interest we often cause deprivation for others. By this time individuals’ ownership has got established on land. Now, the major part of the land in every country is in the hands of a small number of people. What is next to grab? It is water. Conflict over water is not new at all. May be later the air and the sun will also go to the personal possession and the common will have to purchase it for their existence as we need to buy now a piece of land in an inflated price from the rich land-owners to have a shelter for living. Money has created an inequitable world. Anything with which money is involved always goes under the control of rich people. The poor can still take their breath, can have a bath in the river, and can warm their body in the sun because in some extent it is still out of the monetary system.
Now- a- days water is often treated as an item of goods. With a positive intention, I guess, to make people understand about the value of water, it is compared to the goods and price has been imposed on it. The good intention is now turning into a bad practice. Evaluating the life-essential things with money and intention of regulating these types of things by imposing price is just dangerous. In such case there is every possibility to go these kind of life essential elements to the wrong hands. Greed spines round the money.

Recently, WARPO (Water Resource Planning Organization), an attached department of Ministry of Water Resources has drafted a set of laws to regulate water resources in this country. It is known as Water act 2010. It is in draft form now and presented to the Minister for Water Resources on the last week of May with a claim that it is a good law and prepared after reviewing the good existing laws and policies within the country and across the globe. To make it a law, within 15 days started from 22nd May 2011, this document will be reviewed by different committees and will be sent to the cabinet for approval to pass it in the parliament.
I have gone through the document and what I have found is dangerous. The worries with what I have started my article are all there. To protect water, licensing is coming as an obligation for the users in the laws. We all know who are the people in our society can have the license? The water bodies in the North Eastern part of the country have gone to the rich and powerful people of the country because of the leasing system. The fisher folk who grew up by swimming in those water bodies, whose ancestors lived in it hundreds of years, who share their umbilical cord with it, now prohibited to enter into these water bodies. Same is happening in the forest areas in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Sunder bans and Modhupur and other forest areas. The forest people have no access in the forest. The “permit” holders are now reigning over the forest and having all the benefits. Same thing will happen if this law comes into force. Even to fish in the river or in the see a license will be required? These licensing systems in the name of protection of water resources, the gift of the nature on which the common people are depending for their living and livelihood will be made restricted? I think it will jeopardize all our efforts to ensure food security even.

Reading the Water Act 2010 (draft) I got an impression that these acts are to protect misuse of our water. However, it has ignored the actual purpose - - the issue of right. For example, the purpose of water distribution ( Page 14) as it is mentioned there; is to use it in the household, municipality, fish farming, wildlife, irrigation, power generation, etc. The list has been extended long and gone up to the item called re-creation. It has missed the spirit of keeping the human being above all of everything. To ensure the equitable distribution of water for each and every citizen for their living and livelihood should be the purpose of the water distribution, not merely the water related activities as mentioned. I think living and livelihood cover all the aspects mentioned in the document and it keeps the equity issue in the center to protect it by law.
In a chapter, it is mentioned that the ownership of all water lies with the state. This statement is absolutely fine for the advanced states where state is equivocally meant for the people. But, for the country like ours’ do not mean that. Here sate means the people in power. I think we are yet to be in such ideal situation. It should rather be replaced directly by the word “people”, means the owners of the water (and other resources) is its people. This sprit should be established by the law. We all know who gets benefit from the state- owned resources and properties. I am sure; it is not the poor and powerless section of the population.

In the name of “good faith” an opportunity to exploit water resources has been kept for the water dealing organizations. In Page 38, it is mentioned that on any installations on good faith this type of organizations can continue their ownership by paying compensation. Imagine now whose purpose is going to be served by these types of law.
It seems that these laws are going to be framed to protect the companies/ organizations. For violation of the water laws, punishment is heavier for the individuals than the companies/ organization. For an individual it is maximum five years jail and Tk 500,000 in fines or both for misusing water, while an organization can violate water law by facing only financial penalty. To me it is like having the right to violate law by paying money!

We feel that government has not made these kind of mistakes innocently. There is every reason for doubt that a cunning interested group is hidden behind this with a motive to appear little later and take control over the water resources of the country as soon as it is approved as law.

We have heard that it is still with the review committees of which DG, WARPO is the head. I think it should be stopped there right now. To prepare such types of law arrange for a public hearing, listen to the people and expert and then do something. We should keep it in mind that it is water which we are going to deal with the laws. It is no less than life. This law should not be framed such a way that it protects the interest only of the rich who are just a small portion of the population of this country.


It is also available in the link: http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=189961

Adolescent girls, the unaccounted force for WASH, emerging as the hope for the sustainability of the services

Md. Firoj Alam

The DFID funded GOB-UNICEF Sanitation, Hygiene and Water supply project in Bangladesh is now at the end of its time duration.  The  60  million dollar  funded project started  in 2007  to support 30  million population  of whose  1.3  million live in the low-income communities in  18 municipalities  in Bangladesh.

In every sense, the water, sanitation and hygiene situation is worse in the urban slums.  Despite a lot of effort from the donors, NGOs and government there is a little evidences of improvement of the slums conditions in Bangladesh.  The major reasons of not getting the slums improved are inadequate support, project based short term services, absence of right on the land, eviction threat etc.  At the same time these are also the causes of not sustaining the result of different projects.

Amid this situation the DFID supported project started in 18 Pourashavas. The packages of the services are common:  water, sanitation and hygiene. The implementation approach is not also uncommon. It is implementing the hardware through Pourashava based on the demand created in the community, and providing the software for maintenance of the hardware and hygiene practice through the NGOs staff at the community. What came almost unnoticed and perhaps an uncommon approach for WASH is the creation of enormous workforce through development of the adolescent girls within the community. Over last five years these work forces have  become matured and now almost ready to take-over the project activities from the CHP (community Hygiene Promoters), the paid frontline staff of the NGOs of the project. Adolescent groups take no financial benefit from the project. 

The rural component of the same project has a concern of the continuation of the hygiene promotion activities after departure of the NGOs.  In the urban areas the vacuum of the CHPs going to be created after departure of the NGOs can be fulfilled by these enthusiastic adolescent girls. The urban component of the GOB-UNICEF project works with 118164 households in 18 Municipalities. By this time, a total of 11800 adolescent girls from these pourashavas joined voluntarily to the program activities, means 1 adolescent girl is working for 10 households in her communities. One CHP is responsible for around 500 households in the slums.





 It is not that they are strong only by number. They are strong also in their capacity. These adolescent groups have been trained on three major issues: sanitation, safe water and menstrual hygiene management.

Traditionally, the support comes to   the slums regarding WASH from outside is merely latrine and water technology. When it is a very sensitive project, the hygiene education gets included in the project. The issue of menstrual hygiene which is an issue of water, sanitation and hygiene at a time hardly gets an attention of the service providers.

The revolutionary works that these adolescent groups are doing is deliberation of messages related to menstrual hygiene management.  They are not serving the menstruating women only with the words, I mean messages, but they are making also the facilities available to the hands of the menstruating women and girls.  They have established shops in the community called “SANIMART” where they sell sanitary pad and other cleaning agents and tools like soap, detergents toilet brush, tooth brush, sandals etc. Cosmetics items are also available there. More interestingly, entrepreneurship quality has developed among the girls who are running these SANIMARTS. The trained adolescent girls are making sanitary pads, selling it in their own shop and keeping the books of accounts quite efficiently.

A SANIMART run by a group of 11 adolescent girls in Sirajgonj sells product of USD 100- 200 each month, 10% -20% of which they earn as profit.  The calculation of last six month shows a progressive trend of sell and profit. Being involved to this productive process the satisfaction that these marginalised girls are getting is unaccountable in cash. Eyes of none can scape it who visits these SANIMARTs. 

In the mind of anybody a question may arise.  Why these adolescent girls are so interested to work voluntarily for the program? Naturally in the adolescent stage of life human beings are full of life energy. Energy moves. This life energy moves to find an outlet. If this energy is channelled through the creative outlet, it turns into creativity.  If it does not find creative out let. It is destructive, which we define usually as distracted youth force. Normally, the human being is afraid to be distracted and always finds the opportunity to utilize this energy in positive way.  The advantaged class in our society has enormous opportunity to channelize the youth energy positively, while the disadvantaged class just misses it. And, in the whole life they can’t cover it up.  Life ends with the pain of failure, despair and dissatisfaction.  This feeling is common in most of the slum dwellers.

Here, the case of involvement of so many adolescent girls enthusiastically with this project is not a surprising   phenomenon. In the small towns in Bangladesh, the adolescent girls, especially the girl in the low-income communities have no meaningful thing to do. They have to spend the valuable life energy apparently in non-productive purpose like helping mother in cooking, washing dishes or taking care of younger brothers and sisters. However, the inner urge to be involved to the bigger things always lurks inside the human mind. It is also lurking in the mind of these girls though they missed education because of the poverty.  The GOB-UNICEF project came as an opportunity for these girls to get involved with the bigger things. It could have happened for any other project which is acceptable to the community.

The WASH activities are very popular in the communities because of many reasons like (i) it is essential for life (II) it is related to dignity to life and (III) it saves the life.  It has the immediate and tangible output and finally it has a huge demand in the community especially in the deprived urban slums.  Getting involved to such issues, these adolescent girls find themselves important and honoured which are the motivating factors as well that worked as the cause of their involvement and keeping it continued.

Another synergy will happen in future.  These adolescent girls are the potential mothers also. In Bangladesh, 100,000 children under the age of 5 years die each year from diarrhoeal diseases. The unawareness of the mothers and the caregivers is the main cause of this unexpected death. The project is spending a lot of time, energy and money to raise the awareness among the mother and caregivers of the U5 children. Apart from their present role that they play, i,e educating their family and neighbours on hygiene , they will be able to take care of their  own babies appropriately  when they will become mother. Again, leadership, entrepreneurship and empowerment in other words are the important qualities of the life that these adolescent girls are achieving.  It is contributing to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals-3 directly for Bangladesh, i,e promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women.

 ( Md. Firoj Alam is a program officer of UNICEF Bangladesh

 

Her toilet is better than her house and his toilet is complete though he has not a leg

Minoti Ranidoes not belong to the rich category as per the wealth ranking prepared by the community through a participatory community situation analysis. Actually she is from a disadvantaged community in Nalita Bari Pouroshava under Sherpur district in Bangladesh. Minoti Rani is dependent on her own income she earns from pottery. She makes clay pot and show-pieces and sells it in the local market. The small income that she earns from it is barely enough to live a decent life. But, she has never given up the trial of changing her condition in which she has been living for last 32 years. She keeps her eyes opened always to add additional value to her life. Coincidentally, the GOB-UNICEF project came forward with the hardware and software support for the low-income communities in Nalita Bari Pourashava. The project did a lot of community mobilization activities to make people aware of using safe water, safe sanitation and hygiene practice. Software support covered all the population living in the project area while hardware support went only to the households who met the project’s criteria. One of the supports from the project is to provide a latrine for each 3-5 households who are poor as per the community wealth ranking. Though Minoti Raini is poor, she did not get this latrine because she has no other households with whom she can share it as per the rules of the project. The project regretted but she did not lose her hope. When she understood she will not get the toilet she decided to build a toilet from her own resource. The small amount that she has been putting aside from her saving in each month for last few years she spent to build a latrine. And she did that. Her toilet is decent, well maintained and beautiful. Minoti Rani proudly said, “my toilet is better than the toilets you (she meant the project) gave to my neighbours”. I admitted that. I looked at her house and took a photograph of her with the house. I found her toilet is better than her house!!

 Noormohammad lost his leg long before in a road accident. Now, he sits in a small shop and earns 100-150 taka daily. With this little earning he is somehow managing his five members’ family. Noormohammad had a dream of a decent life with his wife and children which did not come true because of his disability. But, still he goes on trying. He does not want to surrender his fortune to his disability. He always looks for the opportunity. Opportunity comes sometimes but because of the societal process of exclusion he misses it also. The GOB-UNICEF project at Nalita Bari was also an opportunity for Noormohammad. But, like Minoti Rani, Noor Mohammad has also missed it. He applied for latrine but finally he finally did not get as his relation with the ward councillor was not good!? Noormohammad become critically aware after understanding the faecal-oral transmission route ( F diagram) in a hygiene session. He decided to have a latrine anyhow. Being refused by the project, he decided to construct it from his own cost. He found his saving is not enough to build a quality latrine. He borrowed an amount from one of his relatives who works in garments in Dhaka. Finally his dream came true. He constructed a latrine which costs tk 7000. He keeps the key of the toilet tied with his waist. I called him to show me the latrine. He opened the lock. I found it clean and well-maintained. Noormohammad has widen his smile in his whole face with prud and told, “sir, it is not from the project, I built it with my own cost”. I told, “congratulation chacha,(uncle), this is why I have come to see you” Anybody will blame that the project has not addressed the equity in this case. It is true. We will have to look into that. At the same time I will be going on appreciating the inner power of the people: people like Minoti and Noormohammad. (This case is documented by Md. Firoj Alam, Program Officer, WASH, UNICEF)

Water Act 2010: Whose benifit counts ?

Md. Firoj Alam


Land, air, water and sun are the most essential elements for life. In absence of one of these elements life is just impossible on the earth. All other living entities in this planet gratefully enjoy this gift of the nature. But, we the human being want to grab it for personal interest. Grabbing something absolutely for self interest we often cause deprivation for others. By this time individuals’ ownership has got established on land. Now, the major part of the land in every country is in the hands of a small number of people. What is next to grab? It is water. Conflict over water is not new at all. May be later the air and the sun will also go to the personal possession and the common will have to purchase it for their existence as we need to buy now a piece of land in an inflated price from the rich land-owners to have a shelter for living. Money has created an inequitable world. Anything with which money is involved always goes under the control of rich people. The poor can still take their breath, can have a bath in the river, and can warm their body in the sun because in some extent it is still out of the monetary system.
Now- a- days water is often treated as an item of goods. With a positive intention, I guess, to make people understand about the value of water, it is compared to the goods and price has been imposed on it. The good intention is now turning into a bad practice. Evaluating the life-essential things with money and intention of regulating these types of things by imposing price is just dangerous. In such case there is every possibility to go these kind of life essential elements to the wrong hands. Greed spines round the money.
Recently, WARPO (Water Resource Planning Organization), an attached department of Ministry of Water Resources has drafted a set of laws to regulate water resources in this country. It is known as Water act 2010. It is in draft form now and presented to the Minister for Water Resources on the last week of May with a claim that it is a good law and prepared after reviewing the good existing laws and policies within the country and across the globe. To make it a law, within 15 days started from 22nd May 2011, this document will be reviewed by different committees and will be sent to the cabinet for approval to pass it in the parliament.
I have gone through the document and what I have found is dangerous. The worries with what I have started my article are all there. To protect water, licensing is coming as an obligation for the users in the laws. We all know who are the people in our society can have the license? The water bodies in the North Eastern part of the country have gone to the rich and powerful people of the country because of the leasing system. The fisher folk who grew up by swimming in those water bodies, whose ancestors lived in it hundreds of years, who share their umbilical cord with it, now prohibited to enter into these water bodies. Same is happening in the forest areas in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Sunder bans and Modhupur and other forest areas. The forest people have no access in the forest. The “permit” holders are now reigning over the forest and having all the benefits. Same thing will happen if this law comes into force. Even to fish in the river or in the see a license will be required? These licensing systems in the name of protection of water resources, the gift of the nature on which the common people are depending for their living and livelihood will be made restricted? I think it will jeopardize all our efforts to ensure food security even.
Reading the Water Act 2010 (draft) I got an impression that these acts are to protect misuse of our water. However, it has ignored the actual purpose - - the issue of right. For example, the purpose of water distribution ( Page 14) as it is mentioned there; is to use it in the household, municipality, fish farming, wildlife, irrigation, power generation, etc. The list has been extended long and gone up to the item called re-creation. It has missed the spirit of keeping the human being above all of everything. To ensure the equitable distribution of water for each and every citizen for their living and livelihood should be the purpose of the water distribution, not merely the water related activities as mentioned. I think living and livelihood cover all the aspects mentioned in the document and it keeps the equity issue in the center to protect it by law.
In a chapter, it is mentioned that the ownership of all water lies with the state. This statement is absolutely fine for the advanced states where state is equivocally meant for the people. But, for the country like ours’ do not mean that. Here sate means the people in power. I think we are yet to be in such ideal situation. It should rather be replaced directly by the word “people”, means the owners of the water (and other resources) is its people. This sprit should be established by the law. We all know who gets benefit from the state- owned resources and properties. I am sure; it is not the poor and powerless section of the population.
In the name of “good faith” an opportunity to exploit water resources has been kept for the water dealing organizations. In Page 38, it is mentioned that on any installations on good faith this type of organizations can continue their ownership by paying compensation. Imagine now whose purpose is going to be served by these types of law.
It seems that these laws are going to be framed to protect the companies/ organizations. For violation of the water laws, punishment is heavier for the individuals than the companies/ organization. For an individual it is maximum five years jail and Tk 500,000 in fines or both for misusing water, while an organization can violate water law by facing only financial penalty. To me it is like having the right to violate law by paying money!
We feel that government has not made these kind of mistakes innocently. There is every reason for doubt that a cunning interested group is hidden behind this with a motive to appear little later and take control over the water resources of the country as soon as it is approved as law.
We have heard that it is still with the review committees of which DG, WARPO is the head. I think it should be stopped there right now. To prepare such types of law arrange for a public hearing, listen to the people and expert and then do something. We should keep it in mind that it is water which we are going to deal with the laws. It is no less than life. This law should not be framed such a way that it protects the interest only of the rich who are just a small portion of the population of this country.

This article also published un the Daily Star, link
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=189961

Recharging Dhaka's Ground Water

Md. Firoj Alam

Water table recharges through a natural process. It occurs as rain and surface water percolates down through the natural filter constitute of fine-grained soil to join with the ground water on an impervious layer. When a balance between this recharging and extraction is maintained, the ground water aquifer remains static. But it falls down when the extraction rate become higher than the rate of recharging. We can understand it only when our tube-wells cannot reach to the ground water level and fail to discharge any water. Desertification is the ultimate affect of the water table depletion. As we are predominantly depended on the ground water for our domestic, agricultural, and industrial use, we face water scarcity if the ground water table is depleted.

The ground water table of Dhaka city is falling down at an alarming rate. In last six years, the water aquifer of this city has gone at least 20 meters down: 3.3 meters per year. No doubt that the increasing gap between extraction and recharging is dipping the water level down.

The water table of this city is falling down because of withdrawing excessive water without keeping the scope for recharging. The issue of excessive withdrawal of the ground water is always being discussed and people are more or less aware about it. While people are almost ignorant and indifferent at the same time about the issue of recharging ground water. And consequently the general people, even the government are continuously obstructing the recharging process.

Let me shed some lights on this very crucial issue.

Dhaka is a city of 13 million people. To accomplish the demand of this huge numbers of population, DWASA alone is extracting about 1500 million liters of water from the ground every day against its actual demand 2000 million liters. The rest of the demand is being fulfilled through the private initiatives which is also ground water based. But due to the lacking of recharging, a deficient situation is always prevailing in the water table. Our lacking of awareness about this issue is making the problem critical day by day.

As I have told at the beginning that the surface and ground water percolates down through the soil to join with the water table. Therefore, exposure of the soil to the water is a must in the recharging process. But the entire part of the soil surface of this city is blocked with the buildings, metal roads, tiles and plastics that prevent the water to be soaked by soil allowing it to be run off. As a result, despite having the significant amount of rain fall [206 cm/year], the water table is failing to be arisen up. We the city dwellers have taken the subversive attempt by covering each and every inches of our land with cemented blocks.

Again, water bodies have an important role on the ground water table. Water from the water bodies continuously seeps into the ground. It is unfortunate that all of the water bodies inside and outside of the Dhaka city are being filled up and covered with the buildings. Many real estate companies are desperately filling up all of the water bodies situated at the periphery of the city. The earth filling extravaganza of some housing companies/ project like Basundhara, Basumoti, Modhumoti, Jamuna etc is alarming us that all water bodies near the city will be finished within the few years which will be a cause of the ground water exhaustion.

Even the rivers are drying out. The volume of water in the Buriganga, Turag, Kaliganga, Shitalakshya is decreasing relentlessly. The encroachers are desperately grabbing these rivers. We often see the activity of reclaiming Buriganga from the encroacher. But, recently I have seen that the Shitalakshya, are being openly violated by some greedy people. Near the Kanchpure bridge almost a quarter of this river has been cordoned with the sand bags disrupting the water flow. Such encroachment of the adjacent rivers on the one hand, and the pollution on the other hand has created pressure on the ground water of the Dhaka from the two angles: [1] the low water in the rivers is causing the low recharge of the water table and [2] people are becoming depended more and more on the ground water giving up their previous practice of use of the river water. In the decades of 1980's we might have seen that many people on the both sides of the Buriganga are using its water for bathing and washing. Now this scene is rare.

Our lifestyle is also creating a significant pressure on the water of this city. We are extravagant in water use. Through the conservative use we can downsize the quantity of daily water need. For example, most of us have the habit of keeping our tap running during the shower, brushing the teeth, washing hands or using toilets, that allows a lot of water to be run off . For say, a person needs 25 gallons of water for a regular shower, but this shower is possible to complete with 4 gallons if the water is preserved in a bucket and pour it on the body using a mug. Like this, 19 gallons of water can be saved from a single shaving if it is done with the stored water. We have no habit of reusing or recycling the water. We have forgotten that water is the most valuable thing and it is limited. The conservative style of using the water can help to reduce the pressure on the ground water of this city.

During the rainy season we find the street of the Dhaka city is flooded with the rain water, while many people do not have safe water for their daily use. This rain water could be harvested to meet a big part of water demand of the city dwellers from early April to late September of a year. By creating the habit and practice of using rain water we can reduce the pressure on the ground water of the Dhaka city.

We should remember that we have no more time in our hand as we are already at the edge of the danger. Therefore, to avoid a catastrophic circumstance, we should start the conservative and judicious water use practice right now.

Author: Md. Firoj Alam
Published in The Bangladesh Observer, January 11, 2005
Also available at Environmental Articles Archive: Water Resources
Web version prepared by BCAS
January, 2005