When Hamida found out she was pregnant with her first child, her joy was accompanied with feelings of anxiety as she wondered how she would care for her daughter.
“I was worried — but I couldn’t leave my job,” said the now 32-year-old woman, who works at a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Hamida, who prefers to use only her first name, moved from her hometown of Batikamari, in Bangladesh’s Gopalganj district, to the country’s capital, Dhaka, when she was 18 years old, approximately 75 miles away. After getting married two years later, she began work as a needle worker in a garment factory, to supplement her husband’s income.