New Delhi, July 27 (SocialNews.XYZ) Large-scale sacking of women has taken place in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG) industry, which was one of the world’s most celebrated stories of female economic empowerment, pulling millions of women into paid work and reshaping families, villages and the national economy, according a report in the Dhaka-based The Daily Star.
Women made up roughly 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s garment workforce between 1980 and 1994, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) data.
The figure fell to 70 per cent by 2005 and to around 53 per cent in both 2021 and 2023 -- a trajectory confirmed separately by studies from the Ethical Trading Initiative, GIZ and BRAC University, and from the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
The decline in the number of women employed in the garment sector is attributed to a skills mismatch created by new machinery, and safety concerns that discourage employers from putting women on night shifts. Some technologies require greater skills to operate, which female workers lack. Moreover, when a machine runs 24 hours, including the night shift, female workers are less preferred for safety reasons.
The '2022 FSG' report found nearly a third of female workers have no or incomplete primary education, against 18 per cent of male workers, and that men can operate a wider range of machinery, including the overlock, flat lock and button hole -- equipment increasingly central to automated lines.
Women have rarely been trained to close that gap, the report found, and continue to face gender-related perceptions that limit their advancement. They hold under 15 per cent of supervisory roles and under 5 per cent of managerial roles, reflecting a widespread belief among owners and workers alike that men work faster and produce more, the report states.
The report states that apart from automation, the two other factors due to which women are losing jobs are factories closing outright amid political uncertainty, banking and loan problems, and falling international orders, which are circumstances some businesses are also exploiting to sack women.
Second, older women, especially those with children, are giving up and returning to their villages as living conditions near factories grow harder to sustain.
Working conditions add to the pressure to leave. The FSG report described 12-hour days with limited breaks, hot and cramped floors packed with hundreds of workers, and recurring headaches, respiratory problems and skin allergies among workers, none of whom are covered by employer health insurance.
Verbal abuse from supervisors trying to speed up production is common, the FSG report found, and the toll it takes is a major reason women leave the sector years earlier than men do.
"Regular harassment makes it harder for women to continue. The Icar report found 80 percent of women workers had experienced or witnessed sexual violence or harassment at work, alongside widespread psychological abuse," said the report.
Moshrefa Mishu, president of the Garments Sramik Unity Forum, was quoted as saying that workers’ conditions have not improved in proportion to the industry’s growth, with women remaining among its lowest-paid despite being its backbone.
Source: IANS
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