In Bogura district, over 250,000 women are involved in the production of tupi skullcaps
\n DHAKA
\nWhen Shiuli Khatun completes her daily household chores, she joins other women in Kashiabala, a northern Bangladeshi village, as they sit around baskets filled with yarn and begin to knit prayer caps \u2014 their region\u2019s main export, and a source of female financial self-reliance.
\nKhatun, 35, learnt the craft from her mother when she was 15. The side job allows her to earn about $50 a month.
\n\u201cWomen in every house of this locality are engaged in prayer cap production, as it offers them a big opportunity to earn,\u201d she told Arab News.
\n\u201cNow I can fulfill all my little wishes with my earnings. I don\u2019t need to ask my husband.\u201d
\nShe and her neighbors in Kashiabala are among hundreds of thousands of women in Bogura district involved in making the Muslim skullcaps known in Bengali as tupi.
\nJewel Akand, president of the Bangladesh Jali Tupi Association, estimates that the district contributes about a third of the whole country\u2019s production.
\n\u201cIn Bogura region only, around 250,000 to 300,000 village women are engaged in cap production, while this handicraft industry engages around 800,000 to 1 million (women) across the country,\u201d he said.
\nThe industry has been blooming since producers began to export the caps to Gulf countries in the 2000s.
\nAkand\u2019s own company, Jewel Cap Depo, is one of about 150 in Bogura and exports 250,000 prayer caps a month to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, India and Pakistan.
\n\u201cIt changed the fate of many of the village women,\u201d he told Arab News. \u201cOur demand in the export market is increasing year by year. It happened due to the high quality of our handmade prayer caps. If the current trend continues, we will employ more and more women to produce the caps.\u201d
\nFarida Parveen, 30, began to knit when she was six years old, learning the craft from other women in Kashiabala.
\n\u201cI have acquired this skill from my neighbors, as I used to watch them, sitting beside them, as they (knitted) the caps. It\u2019s not very tough. But one needs to have patience,\u201d she told Arab News.
\nNow she is often accompanied by her six-year-old daughter.
\n\u201cWe all make these handmade caps along with our regular (work),\u201d she said. \u201cAs a village woman, I look after around a dozen cattle every day. Besides that, we rear poultry and pigeons at our home. After doing all these jobs, I spend my time on making caps.\u201d
\nParveen, a mother of three, can earn between $0.17-0.27 per cap.
\n\u201cI would earn $50 to $60 per month from selling the caps to wholesale buyers,\u201d she said. \u201cThis little extra earning helps me a lot in spending on children\u2019s education.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Bogura district, over 250,000 women are involved in the production of tupi skullcaps DHAKA When Shiuli Khatun completes her daily household chores, she joins other women in Kashiabala, a northern Bangladeshi village, as they sit around baskets filled with yarn and begin to knit prayer caps \u2014 their region\u2019s main export, and a source […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-271250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n