Woman with walking disabilities continues demonstration for government job for third day

Mahbuba Hoque Chader Kona, a woman from Sirajganj with a postgraduate degree and walking disabilities, has begun staging a hunger strike in Dhaka for a government job.

She secured a first class in MA from Eden Mohila College in the capital six years ago after graduating from Madar Baksh College in Sirajganj.

Chader Kona, daughter of Abdul Quader from Biara village in Kazipur in the southern district, continued the hunger strike for the third day on Friday.

She sits on a wheelchair outside the National Press Club in Dhaka every morning and continues the strike until nightfall. She spends the night at nearby hotels with her two teenaged brothers, one of whom has cleared the HSC and the other SSC examinations.

She takes one meal a day, in the night, and spends about Tk 1,000 per day from her fast-depleting savings to continue the demonstration braving sunshine, rains and polluted Dhaka air.

The hunger strike is affecting her health, Chader Kona said.

A bout of polio took away her ability to walk when she was 9 months old, Chader Kona told bdnews24.com.

She walks and does all her daily chores with her hands.

Her mother Hasna Hena Begum was a school teacher and the sole breadwinner in the family.

A few years after Hena’s death when Chader Kona was an undergraduate student, her father Quader suffered a brain stroke and lost the ability to work.

Poverty could not stop her. She had earned money by operating computers and working in TV programmes.

Asked why she is looking for government job, she told bdnews24.com: “I often fall ill due to my disabilities, so it will be difficult for me to continue doing a private job.”

She had sat many government job recruitment tests but could not pass.

“Now my age for entering government job is nearing an end. I see only darkness when I think about the future of my family.”

She will be eligible to get a government job for four more months in line with the government-set age limit of maximum 30 years.

 

“I want to meet the honourable prime minister. She will understand my sorrows. I hope she will arrange a government job for me if I can meet her and tell her my story,” Chader Kona said.

A bout of polio took away Chader Kona's ability to walk when she was 9 months old.

Her disabilities or illness will not stop her if she gets a government job, she said, recalling her struggle to get proper education.

"My classes were held on the fourth floor at Madar Baksh College. I used to go to college at 7am if I had a class from 9am as it took me one and a half hours to climb the stairs on my hands,” she said.