2023-11-02 08:41:50
More than 250 garment factories were closed during protests, leading to the ransacking of 50 of them. In response, police used force, killing two protesters.
They are demanding an almost tripling of their salaries. Hundreds of garment factories in Bangladesh have closed due to violent protests by thousands of garment workers, police said Thursday. According to police, workers ransacked around 50 factories on the outskirts of Dhaka.
“More than 250 garment factories were closed during the protests,” Gazipur police chief Sarwar Alam told AFP, “up to 50 factories were ransacked and vandalized, including four or five set on fire.” .
Bangladesh is one of the world’s leading clothing exporters, with some 3,500 factories supplying Western brands and accounting for 85 percent of the country’s $55 billion in annual exports.
Monthly salary of 70 euros
But working conditions are harsh for many of the four million workers in the sector, mostly women, with a minimum monthly salary of 8,300 takas (70 euros). The workers demand 23,000 takas (190 euros), almost three times more. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), representing factory owners, is proposing only a 25% increase.
Two workers have been killed and dozens of others injured since the protests began, according to police figures. They started at the beginning of last week and turned violent on Monday. Several thousand workers blocked roads in industrial districts around Dhaka, according to police. In Gazipur, police officers “fired tear gas and stun grenades at nearly 1,000” workers, police official Abou Siddique told AFP.
They were dispersed and left the area peacefully,” he added. Paramilitary troops of the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) were deployed to “prevent violence” in the worst-affected areas, he added. BGB Lieutenant Colonel Zahid Parvez told AFP.
Violent repression
Global workers’ rights network Clean Clothes Campaign “strongly condemned the violent repression” of garment protesters, accusing most client brands of refusing to publicly support their demands. Major brands, including Adidas, Hugo Boss, and Puma, however, wrote to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the beginning of the month, having “noted” that average monthly net salaries had “not been adjusted since 2019 while the “Inflation increased significantly during this period.”
According to the deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Nazmul Hasan, his services suspect the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP, opposition) of inciting these demonstrations at a time when violent anti-government rallies are shaking the country to demand the resignation of Sheikh Hasina before the elections scheduled for the end of January.
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