Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a small country lying along the Ganges Delta, where the river meets the Bay of Bengal. Originally part of India, which surrounds it on three sides, Bangladesh became East Pakistan when the British ended their colonial control of the subcontinent in 1947. From the beginning, East Pakistan had little in common with West Pakistan, which was 1,000 miles away. A 1971 bid for independence resulted in the bloody Bangladesh Liberation War. Today, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and is plagued by natural disasters, economic despair, and political instability.

[Page 211]The total population is estimated at about 150 million and is crowded into a country slightly smaller than the State of Iowa. There are 985 Bangladeshis for every square kilometer, or 2,639 for every square mile, making it the 11th-most densely populated country in the world. The population is growing at about 2 percent annually; this is driven in part by a high birth rate of 29.36 births per 1,000 population. Life expectancy has risen in recent years and now stands at about 62.8 years for both males and females. Child mortality rates have been dropping since the 1990s, with 54 deaths per 1,000 for children under 1 and 73 deaths per 1,000 for children aged 1–5.

Poverty is pervasive in Bangladesh, with 44 percent of the population living on less than U.S. $1 a day. Malnutrition is commonplace, with 30 percent of infants underweight and 50 percent of young children underweight or stunted. Two-thirds of Bangladeshis work in agriculture, with rice as their principal crop. Garment factories have thrived in recent years, employing 2 million people, mostly women and children. Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis leave the country each year to work as laborers in Malaysia or the Persian Gulf, sending home an estimated $4.8 billion in the form of remittances.

Because of the country's location at the delta of the powerful Ganges and Bramaputra rivers, its low-lying geography, and its dense population, natural disasters have come to play a large role in the health of Bangladeshis. The Bhola Cyclone of November 1970 killed an estimated 500,000 people and displaced countless others, and in the past 30 years, Bangladesh has endured at least 170 widespread natural disasters. Between 1987 and 2001, 464,000 people were killed by cyclones and 41,400 by flooding. A slower but ultimately no less dangerous threat comes from rising sea levels due to global warming, which could rob the country of 10 percent of its total landmass by mid-century.

Communicable disease is the chief cause of morbidity in Bangladesh, although a poor surveillance system makes exact figures difficult to come by. Outbreaks of bacterial diarrhea, typhoid, malaria, dengue fever, leptospirosis, and hepatitis A and E are common. Only 74 percent of the population have access to clean drinking water, and only 48 percent have sanitary facilities.

Early marriage is common in Bangladesh, with 67 percent of girls wed by the age of 19. About 5 percent are married between the ages of 10–15. Childbearing also begins early. The fertility rate is 3.09 children per mother, with 58 percent of women having access to contraceptives. Most women in childbirth are attended by relatives; only 12.6 percent of rural women and 24.5 percent of urban woman are attended by doctors or midwives. The maternal mortality rate is 315 deaths per 100,000 live births, or about 370,000 a year.

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