War on Want - Better Working Conditions for Bangladeshi Garment Workers

In Bangladesh, more than 3 million people, mainly women, work in 4,825 factories producing cheap clothing in appalling working conditions.  The textile industry accounts for 80% of Bangladesh’s export trade and over 85% of these exports are sold in Europe and the United States.  The pressure applied by international retailers to produce clothing cheaply and quickly sees factories flouting existing labour laws, and routinely subjecting textile workers to long working hours, abusive treatment and extremely low pay. 

TRAID is supporting War on Want with a grant of £75,000 over three years to empower Bangladeshi textile workers to defend their rights through unions, to claim their rights under existing labour law, and to build the capacity of the National Garment Worker’s Federation to defend workers’ rights. 

The project will promote the active involvement and leadership of women who make up around 85% of the workforce.  At the same time, the project will address the global demands made upon Bangladeshi factories by using advocacy work to leverage consumers in sourcing countries to press for change.

Key activities will include:

- Educating and training 450 textile workers at 15 workshops each year on basic legal rights, health and safety, sex discrimination, the minimum wage and how to form a trade union.  These trained workers will then become active at factory level and provide advice to other workers.

- Providing legal advice to textile workers to strengthen factory dispute mechanisms and establish a dialogue with factory owners and international corporations.

- Lobbying at the national and regional level to implement existing labour laws, especially the 2006 Bangladeshi Labour Law.

- To strengthen the participation of women through leadership training and education.

- To campaign nationally to increase the minimum wage to a living wage, and guarantee basic standards of health and safety for garment workers in Bangladesh.

- To monitor and report worker rights abuses through awareness raising campaigns in Bangladesh and internationally, to highlight thet abuse of garment workers to consumers and retailers.

You can see a short film on YouTube talking to some of the young women in Bangladesh who make our clothes here

TRAID will update the website regularly with project news and developments.  To find out more about War on Want visit www.waronwant.org

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