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Weaving others' fortune with the yarn of own life

Md. Firoj Alam
Garments is a highly labour intensive industry in Bangladesh. Presently there are as many as 2,900 export oriented garments factories where more than 1.4 millions workers are working, and 80 per cent of them are female. More than 70 per cent of total export earning equivalent to $5 billion comes every year from this sector. Including indirect employment, this sector provides jobs for over four million people. It has created many backward linkage industries which also play an important role in our national economy. So it can be easily understood that the present base of the economy of this country is founded on the garments industry.
But if we go back to the decade of the 1970s, we find that there was no existence of garments industry in any real sense. In the year 1978, there were only nine garments factories, employing only 200
workers. The sector's contribution to the economy was simply insignificant then. But after 25 years, the garments sector has become the main contributor to the economy, and it is surviving quite efficiently in the competitive world markets with recognition and reputation for its quality products. Bangladesh feels proud that its products are entering many countries of the world. But do we know the secret behind this success? The secret is the garments industry has a lot of female workers who are efficient in needle work, sincere, and do not know how to form a trade union.
Since the beginning, these good workers have been exploited by the garment industry. They are seriously underpaid compare to their labour and contribution. In order to lift themselves out of poverty, these workers have come from the rural areas with a hope of a bit better life. Most of them are under the age of 20, unmarried, and have little formal education. A fresh female worker
starts her job with a monthly salary of Tk 300 to 700 and has no housing or transport facilities. Everyday they have to trek a long distance to work. If you are an early riser you must have seen the march of these garments workers on the road. Same way, they return home late at night on foot. Alas, they cannot afford even the cheapest public transport.
These garments workers often become the target of criminals, face sexual harassment, and sometimes have to pay a big price. Garments workers pass their days in severe social insecurity. Besides, no employer ensures them the security of their job. The incident of termination from the job is quite frequent. The worst thing is that they are not allowed to express these injustices openly. We often hear the news of harassment of the garments workers when they raise their voices. The garments owners do not ensure the minimum standard of safe working environment for them. Each
year many garments workers meet tragic death due to accidental fire in the garment factories.
Each and every day our central bank checks how far the barometer of our foreign currency reserve has risen, our finance ministers calculates how big the export earning figure is going to be in the next fiscal year, and our garments owners think how the business will be extended further with the profit margin, but they do not think how the garments worker will be able to live an additional day with minimum level of decency.
However, the miserable conditions of the garments workers were always a concern for the countries that import garments from Bangladesh. But most of the time, we have seen it as a conspiracy of other countries that want to drive out Bangladesh from the competitive world market. The problems of the garments workers have never been focused on sincerely. I still can remember the debate over the
Harkin Bill that expressed concern over child labour and some other related issues of the garments industries during the early 1990s. Finally, under pressure from the importing countries, a MOU was signed among BGMEA, ILO, UNICEF, and the US in Dhaka in 1994 to eliminate child labour, abide by the laws that regulate minimum wage, ensure friendly environment for working, etc. A decade has passed since the MOU was signed, and little appears to have improved, if we are to believe the recent report in The Daily Star on the plight of garments workers in Konabari in Gazipur.
I fear that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps many more incidents of tragic suicide, sexual harassment, and job losses of the garments workers are happening in other places of the country. The fortunate garments industrialists, would you please look further at these wretched workers who have made their lives yarn to weave your
fortune. I am using the word "further" because, according to the report of The Daily Star, more than 50 garments workers have committed suicide in Konabari in the last five months, but the president of BGMEA is not aware of it.
After the year 2004, according to the negations of the Uruguay Round of GATT (now WTO), Bangladesh will lose all the special prefer-ences/quotas given by US and EU, and the garments sector will have to face a big challenge to survive in the world market. It is being assumed that many of the garments industries will have to be closed, and that the first victims will be the thousands of vulnerable garments workers. The garments industrialists, government, and NGOs should be prepared in advance to save them. Otherwise, a humanitarian crisis will have to be faced.
Md. Firoj Alam is a Programme Officer of WaterAid Bangladesh.