Globalization and Sweatshops: Impact on Canadian Market and Bangladesh's Girl Child Labour

Running Head: GLOBALIZATION AND SWEATSHOPS
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Labour Study
Student Details
11/19/2018

Globalization and Sweatshops 1
Introduction
This paper discusses about Globalization and Sweatshops, effect of products
manufactured in sweatshops on the Canadian marketplace, in context to Bangladesh’s
sweatshops impact on girl child labour and their education, and what effect it would make on
their lives if these young girls stop working in these sweatshops?. Globalization has become
an emerging trend in business today. Due to the availability of cheap and abundant labour in
developing countries and also these labours are not covered under any protection laws under
the governmental regulation or company, many multinationals companies have relocated
their manufacturing services in such countries in order to retain competitive advantage
(Rouge & Rouge, 2016).
Globalization: Globalization describes the increasing interdependency or the
integration of the world’s economies, population, and culture. It has made possible and easy
cross border trade in technology, goods and services, and information (Miller, 2004).
Sweatshops: Sweatshops are described as the companies or factories that have unsafe
and poor working conditions and also have low pay for the employees, sometimes even lower
than 20 cents for an hour. At some places or countries, government or owners of the
organization use threats of violence to force workers to work in such conditions (Powell &
Skarbek, 2005).
Incident of Bangladesh’s Garment Industry
As globalization has shifted the manufacturing facilities of multinational companies to
the developing countries where labour is available at cheap rates, this trend is mostly seen in
the ready-made garment (RMG) industries. In recent years, RMG industry has faced

Globalization and Sweatshops 2
allegations from internationally for using sweatshop practices, low wages, poor working
environment, and use of physical and mental abuses by seniors (Jalava, 2015). In 2013, the
Rana Plaza RMG factory in Bangladesh was collapsed and led to the death of 1133 workers
in the factory (Caleca, 2014). Due to the high competition in Bangladesh’s RMG industry,
members of this industry face difficult situations and for sustaining and remaining
competitive in the market, they try to cut corners. However, these corners may lead to major
injuries or even death (Caleca, 2014).
Young Girls in RMG Industry in Bangladesh
About 4 million people work in the RMG industry of Bangladesh. Out of these
population most of the workers are women or young girls. Since 2005, these industries led to
the death of at least 2000 people due to the poor work conditions in the industries. But due to
the extreme poverty and illiteracy in the nation, women and young girls have to work in these
industries. They consider this as the only way for them to claw out of their poverty conditions
(Trustedclothes, 2016). They have to work for 10-hour shifts and sometimes even 14-16
hours over swing machines to better their lives. According to a study 12% of Bangladeshi
women who work in RMG industry are from 15-30 years. Young girls are hired for this work
because company owner has to pay low wages to them and girls also agreed because they are
left with no other choice to survive their poverty (Ahmed, 2004). Long working hours and
poverty force them to drop their education. If these girls do not work and leave their jobs,
their economic conditions are so under poverty that it might be possible that they have to beg
for food.