Background of Bangladesh garment industry
From last decades, Bangladesh has developed as the second biggest exporter of garments in the world because of open trade strategies or procedures, which have attracted foreign investment at large scale. The rising industry has given the nation with much required capital to restrain disturbing poverty rates by providing the employment to many young females from backward areas, when international apparel retailers have attained access to practically unrestricted cheap and low-skilled work ideal for the manufacturing of fast-fashion substances. However, it is a predictable consequence that many basic human rights, recognised both in international human rights law and developed in national legislature of Bangladesh have been ineffectively imposed so as not to interfere with the extremely profitable industry.
In this essay, violation of human rights readymade garment industry of Bangladesh, limitations on the union rights of staff, forced workforce, judgment, child labour, and improper criminal justice, inadequate wages that amount to surviving in poverty and security threats at workplace. Notwithstanding the facts that Bangladesh has sanctioned most basic human rights treaties and settlements that have been framed to safeguard the rights of people worldwide.
Latest accidents in reviewed and practised garment factories state that present social agreement initiatives and corporate social responsibility efforts that are significantly intentional in nature have been improper to overcome the several security matters and labour issues related to labour which happen in the garment factories which manufacture clothes for the western retailers. The incapability of the human rights administration to secure the personal rights and powers from financial influences as well as deficiencies in the legal rule and corporate responsibility call for substitute procedures that will be showed as a response to the continuing labour abuses. Several initiatives established by international performers that aim to specify and recover the conditions related to labour will be assessed as well as various socio-economic elements behind the bad understanding of the powers (Glazer, 2017).
Bangladesh is the nation of scarceness and overpopulation. It may use overpopulation as human resource to eliminate the poverty by itself. The apparels industry is most acceptable sector, in which overcrowding may be used. It can be considered by making focus on important elements for example lower priced material, less cost of workforce, early manufacturing with inexpensive labour. However, slowly the commercial and close atmosphere of apparel factories becomes a problem of human right due to deadly incidents. It is found that various incidents are the general occurrence in this sector. There are many elements, which made the garment sector tricky. It is very important to make the garment industry of Bangladesh secure for the employees. The secure surroundings would help to decrease possible issues related to various threats. These various threats are not only the reason for danger events but also major problem of harm and damages in production. This incident influence adversely on sustainability and productivity. As per this, human rights for secure functioning conditions are considered as international norms. There are many reasons, which push adversely forward to insecure operational conditions.
Various human rights violation in garment factories
The object of the essay is to show the matters related to functioning condition in apparel factories in Bangladesh. The matter shows previous and latest insecure functioning conditions in apparel factory from point of view of contraventions of human rights. There are many factors, which are required to be considered such as high occurrence of damages and harms on job by staff, less rate of wages employees, deficiency of the disbursement of grosses to staff, issues related to quality of air in factory, deficiency of security elements in factory and answers of garment industry to stakeholders of outsiders.
Bangladesh claims maximum population concentration in world. Approximately 164 million person are residing in the nation (Belal, 2017). In 2010, about 4 million people out of these 164 million individuals were engaged in textile sectors (Prentice, 2018). In nation where poverty and overpopulation increase, the garment industries face various challenges related to human rights. The textile business has raised steeply in the country because of favourable trade policies applied by the governance system of Bangladesh in 1980. When these methods were first familiarised, there were about fifty plants of textile were making clothes and engaging many workers. From the year 2000, more than 3,000 factories were there, which made employment of 1.8 million people and produced overall export of more than 6.4 billion $. In garment factories, 80 percent were females. This ratio of female employees remains similar in present time (Reinecke and Donaghey, 2015).
In Bangladesh, females are a smart resource for textile manufacturers. Females are salaried a lesser wage in comparison of males. Females who are in the garment factories are generally young, single, less educated and are from backward and rural platform. It permits the owners of factory to command the working situations in garment factory. Further, the reasons are provided by Paul-Majumder and Begum that why females contain majority of the staff in garment industry in Bangladesh. The elements involve patience of women, lively nature of females. Furthermore, main reason is that females are better behaved than males. They are well disciplined in comparison of males (Alam, et. al, 2017). There have not various opportunities to get other job. In this way, they are less probable to support a trade union. In the addition of this, the owners of factory have required that there should be compulsory pregnancy test of freshly hired women. The wish to employ single females is depended upon faith that the females will have no responsibilities towards the families, which would restrict the working hours in the workplace (Siddiqui and Uddin, 2016).
Factors contributing to insecurity in the factories
In Bangladesh, the working conditions of textile factories are defined as congested and complex to move around in and furnished with the bad aeration system. Further, due to the bad ventilation system, the workforce was unprotected to poisonous dirt, which would drift in air. The employees were uncovered to other toxic constituents like bleaches required to colour materials during procedure of production. There are many factories, which did not have any exhaust for ventilation. Many factories also did not give masks of breathing for the workforce. Additionally, there were extra-secured threats involving having no fire exit and alarm for fire in various producing amenities (Hideki, 2015).
Furthermore, the major requirements were not specified for the workforce. According to survey conducted in the garment factories, it was found that there was one washroom for every sixty-one women workers (Campo, 2017). On the other hand, the ratio was one washroom for every thirty-one men workers. Generally, the men workers employed in the high skilled zones or departments of the factories that involve the areas of cutting and ultimate areas. Usually, there were also no conference room or room for lunch. There were no arrangements for drinking water for workforce in textile plants. In 2012, workers in garment factories of Bangladesh were earning about 50 $ monthly which is, paradoxically more than the minimum wages of 37 $ monthly (Hasan and Mahmud, 2017). In the addition of this, the workers are regularly not made promised advantages. These advantages include annual appraisals, attendance bonus per month or the seventeen much needed paid holidays. Moreover, the workforce average 4 hours of extra time on the regular basis but are ordinarily paid for 2 hours on daily basis (Velinova, 2014).
The duty to respect human rights is global norm of anticipated conduct for factories. The global managers greatly affect by the violation of human rights in the garment industries. In the case of poor working conditions, if workers of garment factory had more of a voice, it is exclusively possible that the conditions that led to the many deaths, harms, and grievance scan be stopped (Wadud, Huda and Ahmed, 2014). In the absence of trade union, the workers in garment factory were helpless to fight with their managers who ordered, exposed, and persuaded them to enter the doomed building. The mangers are responsible for the management of the human rights of the stakeholders. They are responsible for the fair, transparent, and ethical working conditions. In the absence of these transparent, fair, and ethical working conditions, the managers are held responsible (Stanwick and Stanwick, 2015).
Gender discrimination and disadvantageous working conditions
There is no doubt that the garments sector in Bangladesh is considered as risky working environment. The most occurring incidents include the fire incident in textile industries of Bangladesh. It is the most likely incident in garment factories of Bangladesh (Rahman, Islam and Arif, 2016). It is also a deadly incident. For these incidents, owner, government system, workers and administration are liable for managing the building collapse risks and fire incidents in garment factories. The owner, government, workforce and administration are required to be aware of decreasing the chances by adopting the managing technologies (Mizanuzzaman, 2016).
It is required by manager to have knowledge of human rights in respect of communities or factories within which they operate. The managers are required to follow the due diligence procedure. They should involve all the shareholders to recognise measure and rank the risks of human rights and related issues and chances. It is a responsibility of manager to develop a case for insertion of the basic human rights in the strategies related to manufacturing process or business, approaches and policies. The managers should also consider the legal, functional, environmental, and operational risks. To avoid the issues, the managers should make sure that all the workers should be educated and skilled in the aspects of human rights. The managers are required to create the human rights indicators. They should apply the data collection method. They should review and examine the activities related to human rights. The regular assessment of impacts of human rights is much needed by the global managers to avoid challenges in manufacturing industry, issues, and problems. They should make the proper approaches to stop the human rights violation. The mangers should make sure that the issues, challenges, and problems related to human rights are communicated in proper way to all the shareholders. They should report the practices such as integrated report (Ahmed and Hossain, 2009).
As per the above analysis, it is concluded that there are various legal, practical, and financial issues handled by the garment factories in Bangladesh. There various initiatives are required to be taken to increase assistance between shareholders at the national and global level. The managers should enhance the working conditions of the garment industry. The responsibility and transparency human rights due diligence of textile industries should be increased. There should be an incentive system for corporations with human rights conduct. There is requirement of fair, proper, transparent, and effective measures for access to remedy for offenders of human rights abuses by inside or outside the garment industry. There should be core standards like occupational health and safety, norms related to health, abolition of sexual harassment and violence in the place of work. There should be good and decent working conditions for the workforce in the garment industry. It is clear from the above analysis that the producers have responsibilities to involve in regular efforts to recognise the dangers, threats, and issues in the procedure of production with the standards related to health and safety. In this way, a resolution for permanent improvement of operational conditions for employees of textile industry in Bangladesh is to integrate the establishment of more inclusive corporate social responsibility approach related to problems of comprehensive outsourcing.
Lack of health and safety measures at garment factories
References
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