Housing rights and public health of Garments' workers in Dhaka

The central argument of this podcast is focused on the question “Is Dhaka ready to ensure healthy living environment with minimum standards of housing to its RMG fighters???”

It will inform health and wellbeing of the garments workers of Dhaka city, whose contribution to the economy is highly laudable, but how the housing needs of RMG workers remains unaddressed and ignored resulting a range of impacts on health and wellbeing of the workers.

As per Bangladesh Ministry of Labor and Employment in 2013, about 41.5 % factories are clustered in and around Dhaka which is the 6th most densely populated city in the world [3][10]. The podcast will bring how this concentration is dragging so many people including the women migrate from rural to the urban district searching for better employment opportunity and better livelihood to already an urbanized city [5]. Then it will draw the inequality between the wage and housing cost of the workers when especially 69% of them live below poverty which is forcing half of the city’s garments working population to live in slums in inhuman condition with deteriorating urban environment [7][9]. The condition of women workers is also included and prioritized, given more than 85 percent of the production workers are women [4]. How low wages and living in patriarchal dominated society is causing more difficulties to them are portrayed too. The podcast will also try to show the position of greedy landowners whose main aim is to earn instant money by providing low graded construction materials and poor, dangerous gas and electricity. In relation to it as a summary it will draw how the lack of basic standard housing services like ventilation, drainage system, waste management, water facilities are directly or indirectly causing significant percentages of workers to suffer from undiagnosed chronic health conditions [8].

As a concluding note the podcast will address that how factories that treat workers well get more business and will try to convey the government and RMG owners to keep an eye on not only the foreign exchange earnings or the profits made in RMG, but also on the workers' wellbeing and their job satisfaction. It will also suggest that proposing strict policy regarding workers housing provision in both National Housing Policy and National Labor Law may help to improve a healthy living to the garments’ workers.

References

[1] Population and housing census 2011, Bangladesh bureau of statistics.

[2] https://www.bgmea.com.bd/page/Export_Performance

[3] Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE), (2013), Factory Visit Database, Government of the People’s Republic Bangladesh.

[4] Islam, M. K., & Zahid, D. (2012). “Socioeconomic deprivation and garment worker movement in Bangladesh: A sociological analysis.” American Journal of Sociological Research, 2(4), 82-89

[5] Sikhdar, M. H., Sarkar, S. K., & Sadeka, S. (2014). “Socio-economic conditions of the female garment workers in the capital city of Bangladesh.”

[6] Kibria, N. (1998). “Becoming a garments worker: The mobilization of women into the garments factories of Bangladesh” (No. 9). UNRISD Occasional Paper.

[7] Muzzini, E. and Aparicio, G, (2012), “Bangladesh: The Path to Middle-Income Status from an Urban Perspective” Sixth Urban Research and Knowledge Symposium, Barcelona, Spain URL:https://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/Bangladesh-Muzzini.pdf.

[8] IFC-EBRD, (2009), Workers’ accommodation: processes and standards a guidance note. URL http://www.ebrd.com/downloads/about/sustainability/Workers_accomodation.pdf

[9] Zaman,M. (2018),”Exploring the Housing Affordability of Readymade Garments Industry workers in Dhaka city: a case study of Mirpur Area”, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 5, May-2018, ISSN 2229-5518.

[10] https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-city-rankings/population-density-by-city

[11] https://m.theindependentbd.com/post/269087

[12] The recorded conversation is taken from “The Machinists “A Film About Bangladeshi Garment Workers, Directed by Hannan Majid and Richard York.  (http://sweatfreeshop.com/sweatshop-videos/the-machinists-film-about-bangladeshi-garment-workers/)