Last year the Hong Kong firm Evergreen exported 35 million wigs worldwide, earning more than $15 million. It’s factory is in an export processing zone of North Bengal in Bangladesh and employs 15 thousand workers from 10 nearby villages.Just 15 years ago, Songolshi union was a poverty-stricken area about 10 kilometers from Nilphamari. Now 12 local and foreign companies have set up factories on 140 plots of land in this Uttara export processing zone. Eight of these are Hong Kong-based and one is from the United Kingdom. The rest are local. The factories here produce items like sweaters, spectacles and even coffins. A British company Oasis has trained local women in making bamboo and cane caskets for funerals. According to Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA), these factories have exported $188,800,000 worth of products in the last fiscal year alone.Currently there are 22 thousand workers employed in the Uttara EPZ and 65% of them are women. There are alo 20 foreign and local factories surrounding the EPZ which also employ thousands of people. These factories are changing the face of the area rapidly. In the villages nearby, the farmers are turning into factory workers. The once sleepy little village homes are becoming livelier and prosperous.Local people say that once the farmers here were unemployed most of the year and lived in poverty. Many used to leave for other districts to find work. Now, people from other districts come here to find work and settle in the area. At six in the morning in the EPZ, thousands of people can be seen entering the factories. They com t work on cycle, motorbikes, easy-bikes and on foot.By seven in the morning, most of the workers are at their stations. Then from four in the afternoon, they leave the factories in streams, heading back home.In the mornings and later afternoons the rods of the area teem with the factory workers going to work and returning home. The easy-bike business is booming due to these commuters.Waiting at a factory gate, rickshaw-van puller Azinur Islam (30) said his home was nearly eight kilometers away in Choraikhola union. His wife, Komola Begum, has been working at a leather factory in the EPZ for around two years. She earns more than him, about Tk 7-8 thousand per month. He takes his wife to work and back in his van. Other workers from that area also travel by his van, and he earns around Tk 6 thousand per month. He says that before his family was poor. Now they earn enough to even save at the end of the month.Many women and men from village, Itakhali union work in the factories. The village Haribollob of Itakhola union has transformed entirely over the years, with many of its men and women employed in these factories. Babul Chandra Ray (40) was originally a farmer and could not find work throughout the year. He would ply a rickshaw for a living.. He didn’t own land. His three daughters now work at the EPZ and bring together home Tk 30 thousand a month. Babul now owns land and has three tin-roofed houses. Anwarul Islam (24) and his wife Parvin Akhter (22) work at Evergreen. They earn Tk 15 thousand together monthly. He has studied up to grade 10, his wife up to grade 8. After five years of working, they bought a motorbike and a new home. At around 4 pm, we meet Parimol Roy (23) at the EPZ gate, taking his wife Rani Ray (18) home on a bicycle. They live almost 10 kilometers away. Both of them work at Evergreen. He works at packaging, his wife makes wigs. He was a sharecropper before, working on leased land. Now he leases land to others.Deputy General Manager of Evergreen Subrata Sarkar said that 65 percent of their 15 thousand workers are women. Last year they earned $15 million from exporting wigs. They mostly produce carnival and synthetic wigs. The president of the chamber of commerce and industry at Nilphamari SM Shafiqul Alam said that the area here was once mostly agricultural. No one had seen any other factories other than rice mills. Farmers would be unemployed for most the year and the women would spend their time at home. Now both men and women are working at the factories and earning money.The general manager of Uttara EPZ Mohammed Janab Ali said that when the EPZ was first launched in 2001, there wasn’t much expectations about the project. There was only one factory named Uttara sweaters. Now, 12 companies have constructed factories on 140 plots of land. Nine of these companies are foreign and 40 more plots have been readied, most of which has been booked already.
