Garment owners and the government must come together to ensure higher wages, safe working conditions and proper health of garment workers of the country, activists, factory owners and labour leaders demanded on Monday.
The observation was made at a national dialogue on the status of Rana Plaza survivors and/or victims’ families, organised by Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC). The institution also launched a website and released a comprehensive database on the victims at the event hosted at Local Government Engineering Department (LGED).
“Many people have extended help after Rana Plaza tragedy, but because of the lack of proper information and data, many people received nothing while many others were duplicated on different lists,” said PPRC Chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman. The detailed PPRC database was created to fix the discrepancies.
This database includes the name, contact information, children, level of injury, and whether the victim received any funding from elsewhere or was duplicated on some other list. PPRC also launched the website: www.savartragedy-wecare.net, which holds the database and documents the 100 Families Rehabilitation Initiative.
Rehabilitation initiative
“To keep alive a sense of duty, we felt the need to develop a programme to support the families, and so we started the 100 Families Rehabilitation Initiative,” said PPRC Chairman Rahman.
The event also handed some of the victims or victims’ families grants from the We Care fund, created with the contribution of Dhaka University’s alumni, cultural personalities, and businesspersons.
Shiuli, one of the survivors of Rana Plaza currently looking for a job, said she cannot work anymore because she still has pain in her head and arms. Though she is getting financial assistance for this, she is uncertain about how long that will continue.
Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, from Gano Shasthya Kendra, emphasised on the importance of proper health of workers in order for them to be efficient.
“Poor medical care, unnecessary tests and wrong diagnoses which are prevalent in Bangladesh actually exacerbates the poverty in our country, and we must think of the healthcare of our workers,” he said.
However, he added, medical care and/or proper medical check-up of workers before they join is an expensive process. He said it is the government’s moral responsibility to ensure healthcare of the workers who make up a crucial cog of our economy’s wheel. He also called upon the owners of garment factories and foreign buyers to assist in this process.
Panna Begum, the wife of a Rana Plaza victim who received a grant, was also offered a job at Mahmudur Rahman’s Friends Stylewear Limited.
However, she told the Dhaka Tribune that she was afraid to return to work in the garments industry. Panna said she would prefer a different kind of job as her husband died in the Rana Plaza collapse
Such fear is common among a lot of garments workers these days, said Shamima Nasrin, a representative from Shadhin Bangla Garments Sromik Federation. She spoke about Raju, a survivor of Rana Plaza collapse, who has now resorted to selling fish because he was still traumatised about working inside a garments factory.
Farah Kabir, Country Director of Action Aid Bangladesh, emphasised the importance of providing psychological assistance to the workers to help them deal with the trauma they were still suffering.
GSP recovery
The event also discussed on the GSP revival imperatives. European Union Ambassador to Bangladesh William Hanna urged garment industry to work towards securing its access to GSP.
“I don’t know if Bangladesh appreciates how much the world is watching what is happening here. Photos of garment workers’ protests from last week have reached international media and that is the image they are seeing today,” he told the panel.
“It’s not upto me to decide what minimum wage is, but it should be a wage,” he said.
Former president of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce Asif Ibrahim said: “We should pressurise foreign buyers as well. Why is there such a difference in the profit margin? We should ask them to give us 20cents more per piece and see how much that will improve the situation.”
Ibrahim, who earlier offered a survivor a position at his factory, added: “If our sitting ministers use workers for their personal gains, we will never go anywhere.”
He urged the BGMEA to come out of its “firefighter” mode and not act only after a disaster.
Echoing him, Vice-Chair of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute Humayun Kabir said: “We need a change of mindset and move to a sustainable mode.”
“People have lost faith in Bangladesh and we have to change that,” he added.
