Drishtipat Blog

Migrant Workers: Narratives of Destination, Denial & Class
NEW AGE, September 8, 2008

There is very little that the government doesn’t know about how the sector is run and there is very little that the powers that be have done in the past for the poor workers because they are the ones who are running the show. To reform the sector would mean going against the best interest of the ruling class, writes Afsan Chowdhury

NOTHING describes better the nature of our state than the fact that while we crow over the high dollar reserve generated by our guest workers, we obstinately refuse to do anything serious about the conditions of the people working in great difficulties and pain while sending money home.
It is strange that the three economic sectors that keep Bangladesh afloat have seen high levels of economic distress as far as the workers are concerned. The narrative of the garments sector is well known and for the last three decades it has made many rich and turned the workers into a drill machine working for unacceptable wages and benefits. The obligation to innovate lies largely with the owners who seem to have singularly failed to take the sector forward beyond sweatshop status and investment in workers is negligent because they are many and replaceable.

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Around 90,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers live and work in Bahrain, 10 per cent of the total population of that country. In the year 2006-07, these migrants sent $80 million in remittances home. But the recent murder of a Bahraini man by a Bangladeshi worker has sparked angry reactions from government officials and politicians. The Bahrain government has put an embargo on recruitment of any further ‘unskilled’ workers from Bangladesh. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia had already put restrictions on Bangladeshi labourers, sparked by earlier incidents. As often highlighted at conferences and seminars, foreign remittance is the second highest foreign currency earner for Bangladesh. But apathy from our embassies, corrupt middlemen, flawed immigration policies, lack of a robust government response and disparities in labour laws have placed hard-working men and women in international news headlines for the wrong reasons. Read The Report

Update: Our sources are confirming that Mehedi Hasan has been released today (sunday, feb 3rd) after intense pressure from various lobbying groups.

Bangladesh’s image on human rights violation is taking a huge beating worldwide. No thanks to activities such as the arrest of US based activist Mehedi Hasan.

“U.S. rights worker arrested” is the headline of Washington Times. While organizations like Labor behind label, War on Want etc have gone all out with their lobbying power, its hard to fathom how arresting rights activist in suspect charges can help government’s image for good governence and upholding of human rights.

The charge against Mehedhi Hasan is of “instigating workers’ unrest” in Bangladesh. Now how can we prove someone from a little known NGO in Washington DC can come to Dhaka for a few weeks and instigate all the workers is beyond me. But the government propaganda machine New Nation says the following:

Mehedi reportedly confessed to interrogators that he used to collect information about workers’ problems and send the information through E-mail to the WRC headquarters in Washington DC

Now what’s their to confess about, its not clear about sending your boss email report on your visit? So what does this organization WRC do? They are basically an organization which investigates for its clients whether different brands across the world are getting clothings from compliant factories. Their client base is mostly about 178 universities in the USA who let NIKE and GAP use their university name at the exchange of a sponsorship fee. From reading about them in the web, it seems WRC sends in its field workers to gather data from the ground. If that is the case, then its hard to fathom what was the crime in this supposed confession by Mehedi Hasan of sending data via email to his headquarters.

In a conveniently leaked statement by the investigators, the report further said

Mehedi was also learnt to have disclosed that he incited garments workers to press for their demands and held several secret meetings with a section of garment workers’ leaders.

The problem with the above leak is many folds. Over the past few months, we have seen many such confessions that was either recounted or was said to be given under duress. Now how does someone “incite” someone to press for their demands? How is it having meetings with garment workers’ leaders a crime? Was their cash transfer involved? But what are the chances?

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As the labor riots in Dhaka enter their second day, one has to wonder if the chaos caused by a garments factory closure should have caught anybody by surprise. Trade economists have long predicted upheavals in the post-MFA Bangladeshi textiles and wearing apparels industry. While it is true that many Bangladeshi garments are in a slightly different market than what our East Asian neighbors may produce, it was inevitable that our competitors would chip away at our market share. For Bangladesh, where almost three-fourths of our exports are textiles and wearing apparels, even the smallest of predicted declines should have sent the alarm bells ringing long before we would see hundreds of disgruntled workers on the streets facing off with riot police.

I would contend that these labor riots are a symptom of a much more serious problem than the disciplines of competition forcing down our exports, shrinking our garments industry, and reducing the incomes of our garments workers. For too long, our industrial base has had too narrow a focus. In the capital, one may hear about various services sectors – marketing, telecommunications, and what have you – growing and its urban, higher-educated workers prospering. As the services sector grows, so do the incomes of the workers. However, the reality of Bangladesh is that higher-skill services, while accounting for almost half our GDP, cannot be the primary driver of income growth for the masses when it only employs a fourth of our workforce. Stagnation in income growth is a reality for the vast majority of our workforce who are less-educated and, working in agriculture and manufacturing. Being employed in this manufacturing sector – where output prices and subsequently wages – are set by international markets, income growth is expected to be volatile. Slow growing and high variance incomes are at the heart of the current troubles.
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In full solidarity with the following appeal. Please act fast before the Oct 3rd deadline.

Dear All,

Please note that the livelihood security of 2 million ready made garments workers (of which more than 90% is women) of Bangladesh is facing a challenge as the issue of labor rights have once again being wrongly tagged with the undisputed provision of preferential market access of Bangladesh (as a least developed country) to USA.

Why are we calling on you?

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In two day’s time, prominent human rights activist Sultana Kamal will preside over a small ceremony to recognise the courage of some garment workers who came forward and spoke about their experiences in the garment industry on film. A one-off fund has been established by Drishtipat and the film makers of Bostrobalikara. I quote from the Bangla press release below.

Asif Saleh, one of the founders of Drishtipat said: “Drishtipat
launched in the UK last year with a dance play and panel discussion on
the plight of the garment workers. This fund is an extension of our
work to continue to highlight the ongoing problems faced by these
workers who through their toil have done so much for the country.”

Tanvir Mokammel, the director of the documentary, added: ” I am
extremely pleased to be able to make a gesture, with the help of
Drishtipat, to the brave girls who came forward to speak to us on
film about their lives in the garment industry. I consider it a great
privilege that my team could film them and make their voices more
audible through the medium of this documentary.

The funds are a one-off payment and will go towards
schooling, medicines, for baby sitting provision, the relief of debt
and for a marriage celebration among other things.

THE man was weeping and asking the simplest of question.

“What will I do now? What will happen to my family? To my children?

How come those who decide to close [jute mills] always make it and those who get sacked never make it. How come the rich always decide what happens to the poor?

How come we are relieved that a loss making unit is closed without understanding an iota of what that means?

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WE were sitting in a school in Adamjee. The young girl who sat opposite me was smart and surprisingly confident for a 14-year old.

” I want to give you a gift?’

“What gift? I don’t want a gift? Please.”

“Don’t worry Bhaiya. You are a bhadrolok and I know that. What can I give you? I will give you a song to remember.”

” That gift will be a pleasure. Sing.”

She held me in a steely gaze and sang.

“Amar sonar bangla, ami tomai bhalobashi.”

She wept as she sang.

Why that song of all the songs?

– From the “epitaph for Adamjee” by Afsan Chowdhury

Four years later, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal has again pointed to us where we should be pointing our attention to — to the unfolding tragedies of Khalishpur (thanks robot for pointing this out)

Please read the whole article here

Is this the price of efficiency? 14,000 workers are staring at the barrel with their families. Could this have been phased slowly by ensuring alternative arrangements? When the blood sucking Biman corporation is allocated 300 million dollars to pay its employees for retirement, why nothing is being done for the workers of Jute Mills? Will the prescribers from World Bank please answer?

Take a look at the pictures taken by Munem Wasif here

Lastly, can any one of the readers care to translate this piece for publication in Daily Star which is read by the honchos of World Bank and IMF?

Previous stories covered on this in this blog.

Afsan Chowdhury on Adamjee Closure

Munem Wasif’s work has been widely profiled in recent times. His photos have been on the cover of HIMAL, been featured in solo portfolios in FORUM magazine, and he was recently interviewed by SLATE magazine.

Please check out his new work on the Jute Mills and other projects.

Blogger Shafiur Rahman is a very passionate man. It is evident from his papertrail that the plight of the poorly paid readymade garments industry workers in Bangladesh is one of the subjects where his passion runs specifically very high. And probably out of that drive, Shafiur decided to step beyond the domains of blogging and internet research. He joins hands with film maker Tanvir Mokammel and photographer Anowar Hossain to make the ultimate documentary on the state of Bangladesh ready made garments industry.

The name of the documentary is Bostrobalikara. Famed Bangladeshi film maker Tanvir Mokammel is the script-writer and director. Shafiur Rahman is co-producer and researcher in making of the documentary.

In Tanvir Mokammel’s words, this is why the documentary was made,

I have been watching these garment girls for the last two decades. Like any conscientious person in contemporary Bangladesh, I have deep sympathy for this hardworking, silent army of working girls who walk up to their factories at dawn and return, often very late at time. They are very conspicuous as a social group on the streets of Dhaka, Narayanganj and Chittagong. We know they are very low paid, and they receive very little respect from the mainstream community. I once wrote a poem about these BOSTROBALIKARA. I wanted to make this film with the aim to sensitize concerned people about their plight, which, in turn, may help achieve better wages and more respect for these hapless girls.

The theme question of the documentary is aptly put in words by coproducer and researcher Shafiur Rahman,

Bengal once had a vibrant and renowned textile industry in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now that it has again risen, is it prepared to sustain itself in the future and to face the many challenges international trade poses?

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While the laid off workers in Khulna Jute mill are getting beaten black and blue for demanding their unpaid salaries, industry (the ministry responsible) adviser and business tycoon Geeti Ara Choudhury , says she is only concerned about her own human rights at this point — not others.

From bdnews24:

Industry adviser Geeteara Safiya Choudhury Tuesday said she cares little about the rights of people other than hers, for now. “I’m not thinking about human rights at this time, but my own,” she said. She made the remarks while commenting on a joint statement of 14 eminent citizens on the recent confusions over the caretaker government’s handling of the two former prime ministers.

While the context of what she said may be different, the timing could not have been worse as people in Khalishpur are suffering.

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While all busy w/ fate of autocrats Khaleda-Hasina (now become “heroes”), real issues are elsewhere. In Khalishpur, Khulna, Jute workers strike in demand of 6 koti taka of wages. Where are politicians? They don’t care about working class, and never have.

“I’ll commit suicide if the government doesn’t pay my dues. The government should pay or kill us,” -jute mill worker Delwar Hossain (more…)