Clothing Manufacture in Bangledesh

Here is some information concerning the manufacture of clothing in Bangledesh that may force you to stop and think about where your clothes have come from and the people that have suffered as a result.

In Bangladesh, the textile and clothing manufacture industry is of huge importance with 1.5 million jobs  dependent on export-oriented textile and garments for mostly European and North American markets. The money generated by these industries does little to reduce the poverty and hardship that most of the workers live in.

Many of the workers in the sweatshops of Bangledesh are women who long 14- 16 hours a day in addition to bringing up their families. The money that they earn is often not even enough to pay the rent on a tin shack to live in. In many cases workers are not paid on time and may have to wait up to two months to receive their pay cheques. There are numerous other basic human rights denied to the factory workers including toilet breaks.

Sexual harassment is also very common in garment factories and the women there are threatened with being fired if they say anything or try to defend themselves. Exploited at work and living in poverty, many of these female workers have turned to prostitution as a way to make some extra money.

Organisations such as War on Want are fighting the root causes of poverty including theweatshops in Bangledesh. They aim to train garment workers to protect their rights, contribute to public policy formulation to ensure that the needs of garment workers are recognised and to engage with the government on issues such as the impact of future trade agreements and to represent one of the most marginalized groups (garment workers) in the country.