Human Rights and Women in the Garments Industry in Bangladesh

Ready-made Garments (RMG) is a labour-intensive secondary economic activity. It was shifted from developed countries to the least developed countries through developing countries. The main concern of this process is the cost of labour. The first garment industry began exporting in 1976 in Bangladesh. Garments are now the most important category of export goods in Bangladesh. The increase in the value of exports is mainly due to an increase in quantity.  The critical expansion in exports occurred in the period 1983-1985. Currently, almost 12 million people are employed in 2274 garment factories in Bangladesh. About 75 of them are women. In a Muslim majority country where women’s participation in the labour force has traditionally been very low working in the RMG industry represents a facet of social change. For many families, women working in the RMG industry represent the only source of earning member of the family, e.g., female-headed households (FHHs).

The issues relating to the human rights violation in the RMG industry include low payment of women and discriminatory salaries, violation of service rules, hazardous and unhealthy working condition and sexual harassment. The primary purpose of this paper is to document the violation of these rights and determine how these rights have been violated in the RMG industries. Some of the specific instances that the study is going to examine are a) The extent, to which the garments industries comply with the labour laws in the areas working hour, overtime rate, wages, working conditions and maternity benefits, and b) The extent, to which women workers are exploited against in the area of wages, security and other relevant issue.

This article was written about 20 years ago. Definitely, there are some changes in the human rights situation in the Garments Industry Sector in Bangladesh for the workers as it was the most important source of employment for the low-skill workers. Most of the workers are women, who are from mostly rural poor families.   

The paper was presented in Sixth Women in Asia Conference 2001. The conference was held at The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia from 23-26 September 2001.  It was organised by Women’s Forum of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA).