Bangladesh's garment workers: Voices unheard, lives unchanged

More than a thousand garment workers in Bangladesh have lost their lives since 2006 due to low-cost production pressures, negligence of governments, lawmakers and political leaders. They are still been marginalized with their voices unheard and lives unchanged, and they earn far less than what a piece of clothing they manufacture are sold for at famous fashion brands in the West. The April 24 collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza -- the deadliest garment-factory accident in history which killed 1,127 people working in five garment factories -- highlighted the country's notoriously unsafe garment industry marred by government's lack of regard for safety violations, the difficulties workers face in creating unions, and the pressures from multinational corporations on factory owners and managers for high volume production for low prices. The country's garment workers earn as little as $30-70 a month depending on their skills and job experience. Coming from poor families and mostly women and uneducated, the four million have few options to earn a living other than being employed in Bangladesh's $19 billion-a-year industry. Many have migrated from villages to the cities with hopes of a better life in a country which is one of the world’s most densely-populated countries with nearly 150 million inhabitants on a landmass of 147,570 square kilometers. Half of the population lives on less than one dollar a day and the textile and clothing industries provide the single source of growth in Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings and the country is world's second-largest apparel exporter of western brands.