Women at the Center: Grameen Bank Borrowers After One Decade by Helen Todd

Author:Helen Todd [Todd, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, World, Asian, Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781000011081
Google: 6_tNEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-11-18T17:30:30+00:00

No Safety Net

It is possible to argue that Rina is actually worse off as a Grameen Bank member, since she cannot use the loan productively, but carries the burden of repayment with interest. As we have seen, Rina herself strongly disagrees. When her husband was in Rashjahi and no money had arrived, she lived on flour and sweet potatoes in order to make at least part payment to GB, in order to keep that vital (to her) credit line open. And one only has to look at the situation of Halimah, in the control group, who also has a sick husband, to appreciate the difference that Rina's GB membership makes.

Halimah's husband has syphilis. Her explanation for this illness contains a certain justice. When she was pregnant with their only child, she suffered badly from water retention and could not have intercourse for several months. Her husband told her that if she "puffed up again" he would divorce her, so after the birth she had a ligation. She thinks his disease is a punishment from God for his lack of understanding. But in her opinion, God has gone a bit overboard; the punishment has gone on too long.

Liton is too weak to work consistently. (Halimah tells me that he is too lazy. There is no happiness in this family.) He is also mentally unstable; he gambles with borrowed money and cannot hold a job for long.

Liton inherited a large 16 decimal houselot on which he used to grow bananas and a variety of vegetables. This he has mortgaged against borrowings and lost bit by bit over the five years of his illness. A year before we began our research he borrowed 3,000 Taka against the last 2 decimals on which their tiny straw house stands; a sum he has little chance of repaying. Meanwhile he operates a sharecrop of bananas on the 16 decimals which he previously owned. By the end of the year he had lost that last two decimals — and with it his remaining foothold in the village. He quarrelled with his "patron," from whom he had borrowed and to whom he lost his land, because he could not get a VGD ration card.2 The "master" had nothing more to extract and so no reason to keep him on as a client. He told Liton: "I am already doing you a favour by letting you live on my land." By the end of the year the house was deserted. The couple with their son had moved to Halimah's natal village to live with her brother.

During the year, Halimah did all she could to earn income. She sharefattened a goat and raised share chickens. She did a lot of the work on the bananas. She tried, but mostly failed, to get work in borobari as a servant. But she earned very little. In her home village Halimah could more easily get work as a maidservant at one of the big houses, where she used to work before she was married, although this was still limited to harvest seasons.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.