Machizo | machizo.com

On the eve of Migration day AMIC and Shahjahan, the founder of Machizo in Dhaka, produced a radio production on "Migration Rights"  in Bangladesh for Radio 1812. The feature looks at how unscrupulous recruitment agents have cheated young Bangladeshi men and women, even ripping off their life-savings in return for a promised job overseas which never materialized. It also includes interviews with Bangladeshi labour ministry officials and NGOs on why nothing seems to have been done in Bangladesh to stop this practice.

The radio clip with transcript  link at: http://www.radio1812.net/article/taking-them-ride

Bangladesh is repeatedly afflicted by flooding, recognised throughout the world as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. For many, life has become a constant struggle to fight poverty and the floods.

Siraj Shahjahan meets husband and wife Shamsur Rahman Shaq and Mosamot Amena Begaumin in south-western Bangladesh, where they spend four months a year living inundated by flood waters. They have found a way to survive after being forced to give up planting crops on their flooded land.

URL of track: http://www.panos.org.uk/?lid=21688

Disputes over land are the biggest single cause of court cases in Bangladesh. It’s usually the rich and powerful who win. Here one couple describes how they lost their home and their livelihood.

URL of Track: http://www.panos.org.uk/?lid=27387

In Dhaka, a bustling metropolis of twelve million people, visitors are struck by waves of rickshaws. The colorfully decorated non-motorised vehicles are everywhere. Yet rickshaw wallahs, the men who manoeuvre the three-wheelers around the city's congested and polluted streets, often remain voiceless.

Forced by famine, floods, and debt, an estimated nine out of ten rickshaw drivers have migrated to Dhaka, swelling the ranks of the city's urban poor. Mohammad Nantu Sarkar and his wife Fatima lead a hand to mouth existence in Dhaka's slums. They spoke to Siraj.

URL of Track: http://www.panos.org.uk/?lid=21701

In this edition, we are in Dhaka, Bangladesh where a sudden rise in the operation of community radio stations is expected after the government, for the first time, came up with a progressive and pro-radio broadcasting law in March 2008 that allows ownership of such radio stations to the local community. Bangladesh is the second country after Nepal, among South Asian countries, to make such a move. So far, 116 community radio stations are waiting their final go ahead to be on air. (15:00)

URL: http://www.panosradiosouthasia.org/prsa/prsaarchives.php?id=66