A Human Rights Challenge

The Garment Industry in Bangladesh: A Human Rights Challenge
Peter Stanwick
Auburn University
Department of Management
Sarah Stanwick
Auburn University
School of Accountancy
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the working conditions in the garment industry in
Bangladesh. This case study describes past and current unsafe working conditions in the garment industry from
the perspective of violations of human rights. Factors that are discussed in the case study include: the high
incidence of injuries on the job by the workers, the very low wage rate of the workers, the lack of payment of
wages to the workers, the use of gender discrimination, air quality issues in the factories, the lack of safety
features in the factories, and the response of the garment industry to external stakeholders.
Keywords: Human Rights; Bangladesh; Garment Industry.
The Industry
Bangladesh boasts some of the highest population density in the world with more than 164 million people living
in the country. Of those 164 million, approximately 4.0 million people were employed in the garment industry in
2010 (ACCORD, 2015). In a country where poverty and overpopulation abound, the garment industry faces
many human rights challenges. Due to favorable trade policies implemented by the government of Bangladesh in
the early 1980s, textile manufacturing has skyrocketed in the country. When these policies were first introduced,
there were approximately 50 textile factories were manufacturing garments and employing a few thousand
workers. By 2000, there were over 3,000 factories which employed 1.8 million workers and generated total
exports of over $6.4 billion US. Of the 1.8 million workers, 80 percent were women. This percentage of women
workers remains the same today. It is estimated that a shirt manufactured in Bangladesh cost 16 cents in labor
costs and is sold for a retail price of $13.00. The total landed duty price of the shirt is $.04 and the retail markup
of the shirt is $6.96(Kabeer and Mahmud, 2004).
The Employees
Women are an attractive resource for textile manufacturers in Bangladesh. Women are paid a lower wage than
men. The women who work in the textile factories are usually young, unmarried, have very little formal education
and are from poor rural families. This allows the factory owners to dictate the working conditions in the factories.
Furthermore, Paul-Majumder and Begum (2000) give additional reasons why women comprise a vast majority of
the workforce in the textile industry in Bangladesh. These factors include: women are more patient and nimble;
culturally, women are more controllable than men; women have limited opportunities to move to another job and,
therefore, are less likely to support a trade union; women have traditionally been better skilled at performing the
functions in the textile plant including sewing (Paul-Majumder and Begum, 2000). In addition, factory owners
have demanded that newly hired women be required to take a mandatory pregnancy test and submitted themselves
to humiliating searches on the way into and out of the factory. The desire to hire unmarried women is based on
the belief that these women would have no family obligations that would interfere with their working hours (Belal
and Owen, 2007