Hawkers in Dhaka: their struggle for livelihoods and functionality of the city

Abstract

In developing countries, some 70% of the potential working population earns their living in the informal sector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_sector). They would define this economy or sector in other words: not in what it is not, but what it is: the only way to earn a living for people who are self-employed outside the formal economy and not on anyone's payroll. Most of them live and work in this sector not because it is their wish or choice, but because they have no other chance and consider it the only means of livelihood. Hawking as a profession is considered as an informal activity and a street hawker have to face constant harassment from the authorities as well as political leaders. Bangladesh is a over populated, underdeveloped and natural disaster prone country where illiteracy rate is very high. Also poverty compels a huge number of people to migrate to the big cities especially Dhaka city in search better job opportunity. Other reasons are flood, river erosion, landlessness, social and political conflicts, etc. Hawkers occupy footpaths to conduct their business; sometimes they also occupy a part of the vehicular street. This creates problems for pedestrians who are forced to use the vehicular street to travel from one place to another. On the other hand, this also seriously hinders the flow of vehicular traffic by creating congestion, delay in reaching destinations, loss of valuable time and money. According to the Strategic Transport Planning (STP), Dhaka Metropolitan City has around 388 km of footpaths for the smooth movement of city dwellers. Out of these, the hawkers occupy over around 155 km of the footpaths which is about 40% of total footpath. The services of the hawkers can not be ignored since a large number of people depend on their services. On the other hand they have created employment for themselves without the help of the Government. The aim of this thesis is to show how the hawkers in their struggle for livelihoods and how they put up hindrance to the functionality of the city. Despite repeated evictions, the authorities have failed to stop their activities. This thesis also intends to investigate why it happen so.