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In pictures: Bangladeshi garment workers

Life inside a garment factory is difficult and fraught with dangers as recent accidents have shown.

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As cost of production increases in China, western retailers and clothing brands such as Gap, H&M and Zara are increasingly turning to Bangladesh. Today the garment industry produces 10 percent of the country(***)s GDP.
By Khaled Hasan
Published On 23 May 2013

Fashionable Western labels adorn garments made in Bangladesh – an industry that employes tens of thousands and earns the impoverished country valuable foreign exchange.

Famous international brands source their supply from Bangladesh as labour in the country is one of the cheapest. 

But while the arrangement allows for hefty profits, it’s the workers – mostly women – who pay a heavy price. They are ill-paid and working conditions are horribly bad.

A string of deadly accidents, including a deadly blaze in November and the collapse of a building that housed a garment factory in April, have killed more than 1,000 and highlighted the garment workers’ plight – always grim and often deadly.

Labour in the Bangladeshi garment industry is the cheapest in the world. About 80 percent of the workers are women who come from rural areas. A vast majority of them work in dismal conditions.
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While the labour is cheap, materials used to make garments are of superior quality, making the industry highly profitable.
A normal Bangladeshi garment worker gets less than $40 a month. 
These finished goods are more expensive than a month(***)s salary.
Even if the garment workers win their demand for a minimum wage of 5,000 taka ($64) a month, their new wages still would only amount to roughly $0.35 an hour, lower than wages in many other countries.
Female workers tend to receive low and irregular wages.
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Female workers are mostly employed at the lowest category of jobs, such as working as an operator or a finishing helper. These jobs are very monotonous in nature. Due to the nature of their jobs, depression runs high.
Female workers say they often face sexually harassment at work.
In Bangladesh, garment labourers work from dawn to dusk, usually working overtime so that they can afford a decent meal. Their demands for an increase in wages have mostly gone unheeded.
Garment workers have a very tight schedule. They have to arrive promptly at 8 am and they are given a short lunch break. Many compare working in the garment factory to living in a jail. In these factories, safety equipment and regulations are few and far between. Chance of injury or fire is high.
Reports suggest that Bangladesh(***)s garment workers are among the most exploited. They are trapped in poverty as western buyers want costs to remain low.

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