Rescue workers rescue a woman from the rubble of the Rana Plaza building 17 days after the building collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, May 10, 2013.
In Bangladesh, the recent deaths of more than 1,100 workers in a collapsed building turned global attention on unsafe working conditions in the country’s thriving garment industry. Many hope the attention focused on the industry will improve safety standards and also working conditions for women who dominate the work force.
Runa, 23, is among the tens of thousands of women who labor over sewing machines in Dhaka and its suburbs churning out clothes for Western retailers.
Earning a living
Runa’s family moved to the Bangladeshi capital a decade ago from a village where they barely eked out a living from the patch of land they owned.
Runa is happy in Dhaka.
She said contentment lies where there is work to do. She works the whole day and cooks her meals in the evening.
The working hours are long and Runa misses the easy paced life of the village. But her monthly wage of $75 is a huge compensation.
With her husband’s salary from his employment in the garment sector, the couple earns enough money to buy sufficient food and a tiny home, and maintain a small savings account in the bank.
They are also able to send money to her mother-in-law in the village.
A thriving industry
As Bangladesh’s garment industry grew during the past 15 years, a steady stream of women like Runa migrated from villages to Dhaka in search of work. Eighty percent of the industry’s workforce is women, most of them between the ages of 18 and 25 years.
For these young women, the thriving garment sector has emerged as the only option to toiling on fields, working as house maids or at construction sites.
The director of the Center for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka, Mustafizur Rahman, said the garment industry has played a crucial role in empowering women socially and economically.
“Many of these women are first generation workers. Many of these girls used to be working at home as maids in middle class and upper middle class houses in Dhaka and metropolitan areas. They have now taken up an industrial job which provides them with independence, provides them with opportunity to earn their own money, contribute to their family, so they are income earners now and they also have freedom.”
Unfortunately, empowerment is just one aspect of the industry, now the second largest in the world after China. The other is exploitation.
The dark underbelly of the garment sector was starkly exposed in recent months by two massive industrial accidents. In April, an eight story building housing several garment factories buckled, killing more than 1,100 workers. In November, more than 100 people died when a fire engulfed another garment factory.
Source: Voanews
