What’s in a Number? : Nuzhat Shahzadi

We moved to our new guesthouse. There were 9 rooms altogether including two in the basement. Each floor had only one bathroom. Four of us were from UNICEF.

UNICEF guesthouse in Herat

Our guesthouse was meant to be self-financed. So, we rented out the extra 4 rooms to UN staff from sister agencies and visitors. Alessandra and Tomo from UNAMA were our longest paying residents. Each of us paid USD 700/800 per month. Apart from the food and laundry costs, we deposited the rest of the funds to UNICEF operations. Due to staff safety issues, utilities were funded by UNICEF. We had to run two generators to keep the lights and IT system functional, 24/7. We were a costly liability!

The basement was huge––our bunker and the movie theater-gym-entertainment area were also in that floor. The bunker was large and fully equipped with high-tech IT gadgets, a bathroom, emergency supplies and beddings. The provisions would allow us to hunker-down up to 3-4 days in case we came under attack and needed to wait to be rescued. UNDSS sealed the metal door with a fire-resistant material to prevent our attackers to set us alight by throwing gasoline under the door. We did regular drills to resist possible new tricks that our potential attackers could use. It was insane!

We routinely checked the IT stuff. Every three months, we replaced the emergency supplies that included canned and dry food, drinking water, first-aid and life-saving medicines, etc. We stringently followed the rules.

Our sixty-year-old gardener lost his job as we moved to the new office. Its front yard was buried under a concrete flooring. There were no flowers to tend to. He was a good man, very trustworthy. So, I hired him as a guesthouse guard. We had two sets of guards––3 unarmed guards were stationed inside the compound while 4 armed local guards guarded us from outside of the compound walls. They belonged to the United Nation Protection Unit (UNPU). It was an eye-wash-strategy. Those guards stood no chances against RPG attacks or bombs.

Our cook Siddequa’s 16-year-old son was hired as an unarmed guard. She pleaded with me. We allowed some nepotism.

Armed UNPU guards

“Ms. Nuzhat two of your unarmed guards don’t qualify,” Fleming (UNDSS) informed me while on security inspection. “Your gardener looks 60 and the boy is underage.” The age range approved by UNDSS was between 18-40 years. Our gardener did look old . . .

I witnessed some soft- squabbles between UNDSS and the guards.

“We need some kind of documentation about their age, at least . . ., ” Fleming said, ill at ease. He didn’t want to create trouble. UNDSS was regularizing ad hoc hires under one umbrella.

The guards were informed duly. Siddiqua was angry, cried a lot. She was a widow. The boy’s income meant food on the table for the entire family.

I remembered when I worked with UNICEF-Dhaka, how Harkin’s Bill impacted the underage garment workers in Bangladesh, especially girls, in 1993-1994 (Harkin’s Bill: "This bill would prohibit the importation of products that have been produced by child labor, and included civil and criminal penalties for violators.”). The revenue earned from the ready-made garments sector was a strong pillar in the country’s poor economy. Millions of children, aged 10-14, mostly girls, worked in the garments Industries for their survival.

An MoU, spearheaded by UNICEF, was signed by the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturer Export Association, UNICEF and the ILO to eliminate child labor from the garment industry and enroll the laid off children into schools. About 50,000 children were dismissed from the garment factories. I faintly remember–– there was some discussion about a provision of monthly minimum monetary compensations . . . Not sure if that happened.

Like many of my activist friends from “Nari Pokkho” and “Mahila Parishaad”–– two largest women’s rights organizations in Bangladesh, I was horrified. The strategies adopted by UNICEF and ILO missed a point, didn’t seem to address the core of the problem. In poor families every pair of hands earned something to feed hungry mouths. Poverty itself is a human rights violation.

“It was reported that as many as 40,000 to 50,000 children were laid off. There was much speculation at the time that many of these children had taken up more hazardous work in the informal economy, including prostitution. This perception persists today” (UNICEF and ILO evaluation studies 2004, 6).” Our fears were validated, years later.

. . . Also, time and again, we have to remember our (UNICEF’s) failures with our successes––high immunization, and safe drinking water coverage in Bangladesh along with the sin of arsenic-poisoning. We failed to detect it on time.

Our gardener and Siddiqua’s son brought their affidavits of birth certificates and with broad smiles handed them over to me: overnight one turned 40 and the other, 18––as per the UNDSS’ requirements.

“Tasshakur! You both passed!” I decided to look the other way.

In poor countries, children don’t have the luxury to be children. They become care takers, bread earners. Their childhood is stolen. They have to beat the hunger-game, the game of survival.

You can contact Nuzhat at nuzhatshahzadi@gmail.com

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