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Bangladesh

Study Throws New Light On Unfair Practices By Global Fashion Brands

January 26, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
A study published this month found that popular international fashion brands with factories in Bangladesh were involved in multiple “unfair practices,” such as paying suppliers below the cost of production, which had an impact on workers and their livelihoods. The study conducted by Aberdeen University and advocacy group Transform Trade, titled ‘Impact of Global Clothing Retailers’ Unfair Practices on Bangladeshi Suppliers During COVID-19,’ was based on the survey of 1,000 Bangladeshi factories that manufacture garments for international fashion firms. It found that these factories were facing rising costs for raw materials, and nearly one in five struggled to pay the Bangladeshi minimum wage of £2.30 per day. Professor Pamela Abbott, co-investigator of the study and director of the Center for Global Development at the University of Aberdeen, claimed that fashion brands were extracting their wealth from some of the world’s poorest countries, a form of 21st century neo-colonialism.

In Bangladesh, Concerns Mount Over Mass Displacement And Climate Change

October 18, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
Rising sea levels and extreme flooding in Bangladesh are devastating lives and livelihoods. This year, floods in Bangladesh killed more than 100 people and, according to AFP, eroded at least 1,800 hectares (4,500 acres) of land according to estimates by Bangladesh’s Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS). The homes of at least 10,000 people were also affected. Totally, as many as 7.2 million have been affected by the floods, as per the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Cross Societies, and nearly half a million had to flee their homes and take refuge elsewhere as water levels rose this summer. As per a report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February, climate change is also severely impacting the country’s food production. According to *New Age Bangladesh,* the report points with alarm to the “declining production” of basic food grains such as rice and wheat, by 12-17% and 12-61%, respectively, by “mid-century.”

On Contact: Global Economic Machine

December 6, 2020 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Fabian Scheidler about how the global economic machine came to dominate our lives, and with looming social upheavals caused by predatory capitalism, what can be done to blunt its destructive power. Fabian Scheidler is author of The End of the Megamachine: A Brief History of a Failing Civilization, and co-founder of Kontext TV.

1,200 Dead; Up To 41 Million Affected In Asian Flooding

September 1, 2017 Andy Rowell, www.priceofoil.org , , ,
By Andy Rowell for Oil Change International - As much of the North American media focuses on the ongoing unprecedented flooding and relief efforts in Texas and now potentially Louisiana, another tragedy is unfolding, which is going largely unreported, in Asia. Whereas the death toll in Texas stands at 20, the estimated death toll in South Asia is estimated at 1,200 after weeks of unusually strong monsoon rains affecting India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The Red Cross estimates that 14 million people have been affected by flooding in India; over 7 million in Bangladesh and 1.5 million in Nepal. The United Nations puts the total number of people affected by floods and lindslides at total nearly double that at 41 million. According to the Red Cross: “Vast swaths of land across all three countries are under water .. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and their livelihoods. Many medical facilities, schools, markets and other essential services are submerged.” And as the rains continue, many people are worried that the death toll – and the number affected – will rise. Although the monsoon is an annual event, this year’s rains have been seen as far worse than usual, which people are blaming our changing climate for making things much worse.

Bangladesh Coal Plant Protests Continue After Demonstrators Killed

April 13, 2016 John Vidal, www.theguardian.com , , ,
By John Vidal for The Guardian - Bangladeshi villagers staged further protests on Tuesday after police opened fire and killed at least four people demonstrating against the planned construction of two large Chinese-financed coal-fired power stations. According to police and eyewitness reports, several thousand villagers gathered in the coastal town of Gandamara near Chittagong on Monday, to protest against the two power plants. These are expected to force the eviction of several thousand people in a fertile coastal farming areas and the demolition of temples and schools.

Coal Protesters Shot By Police, 4 Killed

April 6, 2016 Samantha Page, www.thinkprogress.org , , , ,
By Samantha Page for Think Progress - Bangladeshi police opened fire on a group of protestors Monday, killing at least four, according to local news reports. Thousands of people were charged with assault and vandalism in connection with the demonstration against Chinese-financed coal plants on the country’s southeast coast. “We demand an immediate, full and independent inquiry into yesterday’s events to hold those responsible to account for the unnecessary murder of at least four people,” two Bangladeshi groups, National Committee for Saving the Sundarbans and Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon, said in an emailed statement.

Thousands March Over 100 Miles Against Coal Projects

March 12, 2016 Cindy Carr, www.content.sierraclub.org , ,
By Cindy Carr for Sierra Club - DHAKA, BANGLADESH -- Early this morning, thousands of activists from Bangladesh and India joined together in Dhaka to trek more than 100 miles in protest of the Indian-backed Rampal coal project and adjacent Orion Khulna power station. Rampal and Khulna, the proposed 1,320- and 660-megawatt coal projects, sit adjacent to the Sundarbans, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed mangrove forest. Sundarbans, which means “beautiful forest” in Bengali, is one of the largest continuous mangrove forests remaining in the world.

Militant Group Publishes Global Hitlist Of Bloggers & Activists

September 26, 2015 Jason Burke, www.theguardian.com ,
By Jason Burke in The Guardian - An Islamic militant group in Bangladesh has issued a hitlist of secular bloggers, writers and activists around the world, saying they will be killed if its demands are not met. The list will raise fears that Islamic militant violence within the unstable south Asian country could take on an international dimension. The targets in the list include nine bloggers based in the UK, seven in Germany, two in the US, one in Canada and one in Sweden. Some are Bangladeshi citizens living overseas. Others are dual nationals or citizens of the western nations. The list was issued in a statement on the internet by the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a group that has been blamed for a series of murders of bloggers and activists in Bangladesh over the last 18 months. All those killed have been prominent critics of extremist religious doctrines, especially in Islam.

Victory: Bangladesh Garment Workers Win Full Compensation

June 16, 2015 International Labor Rights Forum, www.facebook.com ,
By International Labor Rights Forum - The International Labor Rights Forum is thrilled to announce that two years of campaigning, with over one million people participating, has succeeded in securing $30 million in compensation for the victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse – the deadliest disaster in the history of the global garment industry. “This campaign victory would not have been possible without the hard work of workers’ rights groups and labor unions on the ground in Bangladesh, and activism from a wide array of allies around the world who held more than a hundred store actions and demonstrations at corporate headquarters,” said Judy Gearhart, Executive Director of the International Labor Rights Forum.

40+ Charged W/ Murder For Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse

June 8, 2015 Beenish Ahmed, www.thinkprogress.org , , ,
By Beenish Ahmed in Think Progress - The owner of a collapsed garment factory building in Bangladesh that’s 2013 collapse killed more than 1,100 people has been charged with murder. Sohel Rana is among 42 people who face criminal charges for ignoring warnings not to allow workers into the Rana Plaza building the day before it collapsed. Government officials responsible for safety inspections were charged with murder alongside various factory stakeholders. They all face the death penalty if convicted. “It is the biggest industrial disaster in Bangladesh’s history,” lead investigator Bijoy Krishna Kar told AFP. “They [the factory owners] discussed and decided to keep the factory open,” Kar said. “They sent the workers to their deaths with cool heads.”

Women Around The World Rise Up To Remember Rana Plaza

April 25, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org , , ,
Marking two years since the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, protesters are converging on the country's capital and feminist actions are sweeping the globe on Friday, to honor the lives of the 1,138 people—most of them women—who perished in the tragedy and to demand justice for those they left behind. News outlets are reporting that demonstrators have gathered in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, the city where the Rana Plaza factory was located. Among them are survivors of the tragedy and family members of the deceased, who say that, two years later, they still have not received adequate compensation. "I haven’t received any compensation from the government yet," Nilufar Begum, a worker wounded in the factory collapse, told Euronews. "I can’t support my family, my children can’t go to school. I’m crippled forever."

Bangladesh Police Fire Tear Gas At Striking Garmet Workers

August 9, 2014 AFP, www.abc.net.au , ,
Bangladesh police have fired tear gas and stormed a garment factory where workers were staging a hunger strike over pay, a union official says. The police, armed with batons, forced 400 workers to flee the factory in the capital Dhaka where they had been holding a 10-day strike to demand back pay and a holiday bonus, the official said. Bangladesh's garment industry, the world's second largest, which supplies top Western retailers such as Wal-Mart and H&M, has a woeful history of poor pay and conditions for its four million workers. "Police fired tear gas and baton charged us, they forced us out of the factory, where we were staging the hunger strike," said Moshrefa Mishu, head of Tuba Group Sramik Sangram Committee, which represents 15 garment unions. An AFP reporter at the scene saw workers running out of the factory crying due to the tear gas, while others were bleeding from head injuries. Angry at the police action, the workers then took to the streets, vandalising cars and buses and prompting officers to fire more rounds of tear gas, the reporter said. The workers have been on a hunger strike on behalf of 1,500 employees who stitch clothes in five factories belonging to the Tuba Group in Dhaka's Badda district.

What Hasn’t Changed Since The Bangladesh Factory Collapse

April 28, 2014 Jason Motlagh, www.pulitzercenter.org ,
When I met Rajina Aktar in February of last year, her eyes were still red and her memory still fuzzy from the toxic smoke that had knocked her unconscious three weeks earlier. The 15-year-old had been sewing pockets onto winter jackets when a fire broke out at Smart Export Garments, an illegal factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Walking through the ruins, I saw what appeared to be handprints and scratch marks on the walls of the stairwell where eight workers were crushed to death as 350 people tried to push through a single locked exit. Someone had managed to carry Aktar to safety. In the dank basement room where she lived, she told me that with four relatives to support and no education, she expected to return to the assembly line as soon as she recovered. “There is nothing else,” she said. Fires in the factories of Bangladesh’s $20 billion garment export industry were occurring an average of two to three times a week then.

Walmart Still Shirks Responsibility For Supply Chain Catastrophes

April 25, 2014 Erica Smiley, www.jwj.org , ,
April 24 marks the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, where at least 1,138 people were killed and more than 2,500 were injured. Known as the worst garment industry catastrophe in history, the building collapsed only months after the deadliest factory fire in Bangladesh’s historydestroyed the Tazreen factory in Dhaka, killing at least 117 people. Both tragedies occurred at facilities manufacturing garments for highly profitable western brands, including Walmart. Many think these tragedies could have been prevented if the companies had enforced stricter safety protocols and improved working conditions. Walmart had previously demonstrated some willingness to take responsibility for the conditions along its supply chain. The company moved $200,000 to Cambodian workers after a supplier abruptly closed down operations without paying them, signed on to the Fair Food Program with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to boost wages for farmworkers in Florida, and cut its contract with C.J.’s Seafood, a Louisiana seafood supplier, after workers there went on strike to protest forced labor conditions.

Rana Plaza Factory Disaster Anniversary Marked By Protests

April 25, 2014 Agence-France Presse in Savar, www.theguardian.com , ,
Thousands of people, some wearing funeral shrouds, staged demonstrations at the site of the Rana Plaza factory complex on Thursday on the one-year anniversary of the Bangladesh disaster that claimed 1,138 lives. The demonstrators – who included injured survivors and the families of the deceased – marched to the ruins of the nine-storey building carrying flowers and chanting slogans including "We want compensation!" and "Death to Sohel Rana!", the owner of the building. Relatives of the 140 workers still unaccounted for also joined in, calling on the government to help find their bodies. They included toddlers holding photos of their missing mothers. "I want my daughter's dead body. At least it would give us some consolation," said Minu Begum, clutching the photo of her missing daughter, Sumi Begum, who worked at one of Rana Plaza's five factories.
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