Abstract
Despite their acknowledgement in 2013 as a separate gender and as they have been increasingly referred to as third gender, transwomen in Bangladesh continue to lack employment opportunities and remain among the most vulnerable segments of the population. This chapter puts the spotlight on the crucial contribution of Bandhu to creating transwomen inclusion. Founded in 1996 in Dhaka, Bandhu is a human rights and non-governmental organization whose mission lies in the provision of services for sexual and reproductive health and rights while also ensuring the well-being of the gender diverse population of Bangladesh. This chapter specifically unpacks Bandhu’s contribution by analyzing its leading and implementing function in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project for transwomen inclusion through the lived experiences of Shima and Dilruba. They are the first two transwomen involved in the CSR project and its primary beneficiaries. By particularly stressing the challenges of Shima and Dilruba after finding employment and Bandhu’s approach to navigate these challenges, this chapter represents an important learning tool for industry practitioners, government professionals, activists, and educators who are interested in human rights and in understanding how to better create inclusion for transwomen at work in South Asia.
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Notes
- 1.
Bandhu is an abbreviate form of Bandhu Social Welfare Society.
- 2.
The term “gender diverse” is assigned in medicine to people for whom “the assumption that one’s gender identity will accord with assigned sex (where a penis is taken as indicating a male and a vagina is taken as indicating a female) is incorrect” (Riggs, Coleman, & Due, 2014, p. 230).
- 3.
CSR projects can be defined as those projects that a company conducts in cooperation with relevant stakeholders and that pertain to the integration of social, environmental, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities toward society into its operations, processes, and core business strategy (Rasche, Morsing, & Moon, 2017).
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Acknowledgements
I owe my gratitude to Shale Ahmed—Executive director at Bandhu—and his team for their continuous support and for sharing their experiences and insights. I thank Ohidul Islam (Parboti) for her precious assistance and constructive advices during the interview process in Dhaka. I am particularly grateful to Mostafiz Uddin—Managing Director of Denim Expert Ltd. as well as Founder and CEO of the Bangladesh Apparel exchange—for his admirable CSR initiatives with transgender inclusion in Chittagong. Despite the difficulties due to the rise of Covid-19, I am confident that his continuous efforts to create positive change for the people of Bangladesh will not go unnoticed. I am also indebted to a number of experts at USAID and Denim Expert Limited who were willing to devote their time to discuss about their CSR project. Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Shima and Dilruba for letting me hear their stories and for the inspiring conversations that have informed this chapter. This would have never materialized without their courage and contribution. I completed part of this research while I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation (CSSI) at the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. CSSI receives funding from Newmont Goldcorp Inc. Any inaccuracies or omissions are entirely my own.
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Fontana, E. (2021). Creating Inclusion for Transwomen at Work Through Corporate Social Responsibility: The Contributions of Bandhu in Bangladesh. In: Marques, J. (eds) Exploring Gender at Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64319-5_20
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