Opportunities to Rest at Home and Work

The houses of the female workers were seen in two study areas, as I conducted most of the In-depth interviews at their home places. After walking through a narrow lane, I entered a one-level brick and tin building with 15 single rooms (one family, sometimes two persons in each room, the size of the room is 30-40 square feet), one shared kitchen with some stoves for cooking, and three toilets for 15 families.

The furniture includes a semi-double bed which occupied most of the space in the room.

Clothes are hung on a rope; cooking utensils are piled under the beds. The rooms don't have a window, just a door to pass air and light. The women workers begin their day around 4:00 am to keep away from lines in the kitchen and toilets. They have to get done with cooking for themselves and their family members, cleaning and other household works before they go to the factory. The women's' living condition likewise worsen their well-being condition on the grounds that shared accommodation does not allow them to get enough sleep or rest at home.

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Further, they must still continue to cook and clean and fulfill the responsibilities of the wife. These social responsibilities as the consequences of women's gendered roles which are making them overburdened.

In this regard, Khadija said, "As I am a patient of low pressure, my doctor instructed me to sleep more. But how could I sleep more? I work for long hours in a day and have little time to prepare meals.

I return home very tired every day. At that moment, I just mix rice and dal and make 'khichuri' with salt before I go to sleep. I cook fish and meat very often but that even then I keep for my husband".

They work hard at home in the morning and walk to the factory as fast as they can to enter the factory by 8:00 am. They get a one-hour break for lunch. Some of them have to manage time to go home for cooking the supper. The pregnant workers consume food very quickly to enable them to take a small nap during the lunch break to energize them for the rest of the workday.

Reflecting on the experience of pregnancy and work, another pregnant worker noted, "Pregnancy is the most joyful event for a woman but if you are a factory worker, it will be the most stressful and tensed event of your life. Working in one position for long hours, running to meet the production target and having maternity leave without payment makes us sick. If you are pregnant you may have to survive without payment during the maternity leave or you have to continue heavy workload as long as possible. Supervisors will not be happy with you as you will be slow to meet the daily quota. You will be encouraged to leave the job. You will not receive support from your boss to continue the job as a pregnant woman. The doctor will advise you to take rest but you will not have an opportunity to take rest due to work at home and workplace.

Commuting to and from workplace

Most of the female garment workers come in and out from the factory to the house on foot. I have interviewed 30 young female garment worker whose age 18-35 years. Maximum time they face an awkward situation in the street coming to their factory. By rescuing for insulting event, they ware vale (Burka or Nakab) to cover the whole body or face for saving themselves. It has been estimated that, on average, a garment worker travels more than 5 kilometers a day on foot (Paul and Majumder, 2010). This long-distance travel is not only physical strenuous but also mentally stressful, since garment workers worry about attacks by local goons (10%), by touts (6.7%), harassment by police (3.33%), eve teasing in the street (26.7%), snatching (23.33%), Love proposal (20%) by the street boy on the roads. They feel a severe lack of social protection on the roads because the female RMG workers are socially downgraded and treated as 'available object' for everybody.