Nasima was born in Talbaria village in the south-west of Bangladesh. Her mother passed away when she was only five years old, so she could only study in a local school up to class 5. When she was 17, she was married to a man who was already married. She suffered abuse and torture throughout her marriage. She eventually divorced him and returned home. However, Nasima wasn’t welcomed there and so started working as a janitor in a hospital in Jessore and later as a domestic worker in Dhaka to make ends meet.
To get by, Nasima took a job as a helper in a garment factory in Dhaka. Within six months, she was promoted at work. Her husband returned in 2016 and Nasima had her first son, Nazrul* a year later. She left her job to take care of him, however, when her son was only 18 months old, Nasima’s husband left her again to live with his other wife. Nasima sent her son back to her village to live with a neighbour and started working as a domestic worker. She hardly earned 5,000 Bangladeshi taka (£47) a month, which was not enough to survive on.
Nasima got to know from a co-worker about Nagorik Uddyog’s day care centre, for the children of garment factory workers. She enrolled Nazrul there in March 2020 and was able to find a job at a garment factory soon afterwards. With Nazrul at the day-care, she is able to work and earn up to 13,000 taka (£123) a month.