For the last several days, Dhaka has been going dark in patches after evening. One area might have electricity; the next doesn't. During the day, it is barely noticeable, but once evening comes, the power cuts become visible not only in homes and shops, but on the roads too. And in a city where thousands of people are still travelling home from offices, universities, classes, hospitals, and shops late into the night, darkness on the roads is not simply an inconvenience. It changes how people move, and for many women, it can change whether they feel safe moving at all.
Women in Dhaka already make calculations about getting home safely: which road should they take, would there be enough light, how many people might there be around, and whether they should call someone while on the way. Research reflects how real these concerns are. A study on women's safety in Dhaka's public transport found that 86.6 percent of respondents feared being harassed, while 67.2 percent had experienced harassment while commuting. The study also found that women faced greater vulnerability when travelling at night. A broader survey of 5,187 women across 24 districts found that 87 percent had experienced some form of harassment at least once, while 57 percent considered public transport the most unsafe public space. If you add frequent load-shedding to this reality, it sounds even more precarious, as shops may be closed, buildings may have no lights, and the usual visibility of people and surroundings disappears without power. I experienced that myself recently.
It was around 10 pm. I was coming home from my office after having an extra load of work that day. The roads were already packed with traffic. Since my office is relatively close to my home, I don't usually need to take the highways. Most of the time, I come through the narrow roads and lanes around my area. But that night, because of the heavy traffic, my rickshaw puller took a turn into a narrower lane to avoid the congestion, and a little further in, everything was dark. The shops were closed, and the flats around us didn't have their lights on either. It felt like my heart jumped out of my body, and I started praying until I finally saw my own street. I was lucky that night; nothing happened to me. But how long can we keep depending on luck? What frightened me was how quickly an ordinary route home could feel completely different. I had travelled through these same kinds of lanes countless times before. But without the lights, I couldn't see what was ahead of me. And I kept thinking: if this is how frightening one dark lane can feel, what does it mean for women who already have to think about their safety every time they travel through Dhaka after dark?
For the last few days, much of the conversation around load shedding has focused on economic losses, industry pressure, household disruption, and interruptions to production. But what about the roads in between? What happens when someone has to leave work, leave class, or finish a late shift and still has to make their way home through a city that is going dark? There is a reason lighting is treated as more than a basic urban amenity. In crime prevention and urban-design research, visibility is considered an important part of creating safer public spaces. One of the principles of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is that people are safer when spaces allow them to see and be seen, reducing hidden areas and increasing natural surveillance. But what is the use of having streetlights if they stop lighting the streets whenever the electricity goes out? This is why alternative and reliable sources of street lighting matter.
Solar-powered streetlights are not an unrealistic idea. In April this year, Dhaka North City Corporation installed 450 solar-powered LED streetlights in Bhashantek, including narrow lanes and internal roads, with the stated aim of improving safety and night-time mobility. The project is expected to benefit around 150,000 low-income residents and reduce dependence on the national grid. Of course, streetlights alone cannot solve harassment, crime, or violence against women. But darkness should not become an additional risk every time the electricity goes out. And this is not only about women. A student returning from class, a worker coming home after a late shift, an elderly person returning from a pharmacy, or anyone travelling through an unfamiliar road can become more vulnerable when a familiar route suddenly disappears into darkness. But, indeed, women often have more at stake, and fear can affect the choices they make.
Dhaka is a city of roads, but much of its everyday movement happens through the narrow lanes between them. They may not look significant on a city map, but they are a huge part of how Dhaka actually moves. That is what I kept thinking about that night. I wasn't travelling somewhere far away. I wasn't taking an unfamiliar road. And yet, one turn into a dark lane was enough to make me start praying to reach home safely. So, when the electricity goes out, the questions should not only be about whether our fans stop working, whether employees can work, or whether businesses lose productivity. The question also is, “Can people still get home safely?”
Tazkia Tahia is student of Media Studies and Journalism at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).
