“Woman worker in ready–made garments”

Bangladesh garments industry has created a breakthrough regarding women's employment in the industrial sector. A supply of cheap and readily available female labor has contributed to the rapid expansion of the ready-made garments (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. According to the survey conducted by the private organization, there are 4825 active RMG factories in Bangladesh with about 4 million workers of which more than 80% are female and 20% are male workers. Bangladesh garment industry has been at the heart of the country's export boom over since the first factory opened in 1976. The industry has grown dramatically over the past 35 years, and today accounts for 80% of Bangladesh's total exports of the 988 women workers interviewed for the report in 2018, 86% were between 18 and 32 years old. It is these young women who provide the hard labour needed to meet the unrealistic production targets set by the Bangladeshi garments factories. Employers claim that order workers perform more poorly and make more mistakes and that this is why they favour younger women workers. As many as 86% women workers are employed as sewing operators and nearly 10% as helper's. There are the lowest paid jobs in the industry. Women in both positions undertake manual work and their level of education is low, just 22% had obtained their higher secondary certificate.

As a result of sustained campaigning by the women workers and other trade unionists in Bangladesh, the minimum wage for garments workers was raised in 2010 for the first time in four years. Receipt of wages in the garment sectors depends on meeting of assigned production target. If the production target are meet, a sewing operator's salary now is very insignificant amount to be mentioned. It is not enough to allow a worker to provide her family with basic human necessities such as food shelter clothing, water, health, education and transport.

Trade unionists in Bangladesh calculate the living wage for a single worker to be at least 5,000 Tk. a month. According to the Bangladesh law, workers are supposed to work an eight hour shift. However, garment workers are forced to put in extra hours on a daily basis in order to meet production target. So they are working 11-12 hours per day. In addition to this, unpaid overtime, is common phenomena. a group. Lastly, control over income provides the women with more decision making power at home, voice in the social sphere and self-esteem. Female garment workers constitute a highly vulnerable However, they face many forms of mistreatment in the workplace 60% of them are spoken to with obscene language. Most alarming were reports of sexual harassment in the workplace with 30% women reporting sexual advance and 32% being touched inappropriately.