Vulnerabilities of Women Workers in the Readymade Garment Industry of Bangladesh: A Human Rights Challenge

RUNNING HEAD: A Human Right Challenge 0
A Human Right Challenge
Garment Industry Of Bangladesh
(Student Name)
10/6/2018
Human right refers to natural rights which are free for human beings and fundamental
liberties permitted to an individual without the interference from any government or group of
people for any reason (Hammer, 2018). The civil liberty of individuals is protected by the

A Human Right Challenge 1
constitution of the country which defines them and the organization that exists to promote
them. The human right is applicable for every individual; under any circumstances, the
implementation of human right does not go unexcused in any place or situation (Grigorescu
and Komp, 2017). In the past decades, Bangladesh has considered as the second largest
exporter of garment in the world. It results, the liberalized trade policies which have attached
large-scale foreign investment (Hess, 2017). The increasing industry in Bangladesh provides
the opportunity of employment to the millions of people and distressing poverty rates (Kahn,
2018). Heaps of young women from rural areas earn employment, while international
garment retailers have also gained the access to effectively unlimited low-priced and low-
skilled labor which is ideal for the making of fast-fashion items (Belal, 2017).
With the growth in Bangladesh, human rights have been ignored by the industries ( Dey and
Islam, 2015). It has been analyzed that the most extensive abuses of human rights has been
done in the ready-to-wear garment industry of Bangladesh such as child labor, forced labor,
restriction in human right, discrimination, lack of appropriate justice, insufficient
remunerations that cause living in poverty and the hazards at the workplace (Kerrissey and
Schuhrke, 2016). Moreover, Bangladesh has also indorsed most of the essential rights treaties
and concords, which have been designed to protect the rights of individual globally with
persist of violations (Kamruzzaman and Hakim, 2016). Bangladesh has considered one of the
main corrupted countries in the world, which created a negative impact on their socio-
economic development. In the garment industry of Bangladesh, everyone thinks about their
profit and interest, to achieve the target they can go to any extent and adopted the unethical
practice (Risse and Wollner, 2015). In this particular research work, it has been analysing that
Rana Plaza greatly concentrates to manage the relationship with Zara and Primark through
adopting unethical practices like the engagement of child labor (Siddiqui and Uddin, 2016).
The garment industries in the Bangladesh have adopted an unethical way to get success in the

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business. After the disastrous incident in 2013, in the case where accident was occurred in the
factory of Rana Plaza, it was situated in outskirts of the capital named Dhaka which was
collapsed and 1,138 labors were killed in textile along with more than 2000 people were
injured (Bair, 2017). The incident was happened because of the unethical practice adopted by
the Rana Plaza. The authorities of Bangladesh was failed to fulfill each of their obligations
towards protecting the human rights of the employees. The management of Rana Plaza did
not meet any of the security and safety code. It also built and expanded their factory without
the permission of any authorities; it was unethical on the part of the firm and its owners. The
main unethical practice found in the case was, the building of the factory was built without
the permission of authority. Second, the conversion took place from marketable use to the
industrial use (Berik, 2017). Third, use of substandard material for construction of the
building that was the last reason for collapse and also leads towards a burden on building a
structure which was provoked by the vibration because of the generator and many other
heavy and moving tools and equipment.
Most of the industries in Bangladesh, exploiting their employees, in the textile
manufacturing industries, the women are the most attractive resources for them. The women
are hire in the low wage rate. They mostly prefer young, unmarried and little-educated
women belong from the poor rural families (Al-Amin and Hoque, 2015). The main reason to
hire unmarried women is with the belief that the women have no family obligation that would
interfere with their working hours. The overtime is mandatory and workers often force to
work up to twenty hours when there is a rush to produce an order. The women are not
allowed to speak while working and are fired around the age of 30. The industries are
adopting the unethical practice by providing unsafe factory condition, doing inhumane
treatment, verbal assaulting, physically abusing, or firing from the job without any reason.
The spatial segregation of the sexes in the factory is an outward expression of genders wages