কারখানায় হয়রানির শিকার ৮৫% নারী শ্রমিক

কারখানায় হয়রানির শিকার ৮৫% নারী শ্রমিক

পোশাক খাত নিয়ে ‘কর্মজীবী নারী’র জরিপ

বর্তমানে প্রায় ৪৪ লাখ শ্রমিক কাজ করেন দেশের পোশাক খাতে। শিল্পের শুরু থেকে এ খাতে নারী শ্রমিকের আধিক্য ছিল। গবেষণায় দেখা গেছে, আগে পোশাক খাতে ৮০ শতাংশের বেশি নারী শ্রমিক কাজ করলেও বর্তমানে এ হার ৬০ শতাংশে নেমে এসেছে। এ নারী শ্রমিকরা কারখানায় বিভিন্নভাবে হয়রানির শিকার হন— এ অভিযোগ অনেক পুরনো। সাম্প্রতিক গবেষণা প্রতিবেদন অনুযায়ী কারখানায় নারী শ্রমিকের ৮৫ শতাংশ শিকার হন মৌখিক হয়রানির।

চলতি বছর জানুয়ারি মাসে ‘স্টেট অব রাইটস ইমপ্লিমেনটেশন অব উইমেন রেডিমেড গার্মেন্ট ওয়ার্কার্স’ শীর্ষক প্রতিবেদন প্রকাশ করা হয়। কেয়ার বাংলাদেশের সহযোগিতা ও ইউরোপীয় ইউনিয়নের অর্থায়নে কর্মজীবী নারীর উদ্যোগে ‘ঐক্য’ প্রকল্পের আওতায় তৈরি পোশাক শিল্পে নারী শ্রমিকের কর্মপরিবেশের ওপর গবেষণাটি করা হয়েছে। সংখ্যাগত পদ্ধতি (কোয়ান্টিটেটিভ অ্যাপ্রোচ) ব্যবহার করে ঢাকা ও গাজীপুর এলাকার মোট ১৫০ নারী শ্রমিকের ওপর জরিপ চালিয়ে প্রতিবেদনটি তৈরি করা হয়েছে।

প্রতিবেদন অনুযায়ী, পোশাক কারখানার কর্মপরিবেশে মৌখিক, যৌন, মানসিক ও শারীরিক— এ চার ধরনের হয়রানির শিকার হন নারী শ্রমিক। ৮৪ দশমিক ৭ শতাংশ নারী শ্রমিক শিকার হন মৌখিক হয়রানির। যৌন হয়রানির শিকার হন এমন নারী শ্রমিক ১২ দশমিক ৭ শতাংশ। ৭১ দশমিক ৩ শতাংশ নারী শ্রমিক মানসিক হয়রানির শিকার হন কর্মপরিবেশে। আর শারীরিক হয়রানির শিকার নারী শ্রমিকের ২০ শতাংশ।

গবেষণা কার্যক্রমে নেতৃত্ব দিয়েছেন রাজশাহী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের অধ্যাপক ড. জাকির হোসেন। বণিক বার্তাকে তিনি বলেন, আগের চেয়ে পরিস্থিতি ভালো হলেও কারখানায় কর্মপরিবেশে নারী শ্রমিকদের হয়রানি করা বন্ধ হয়নি। পরিস্থিতি এমন যে, বিশেষভাবে কোনো স্পর্শ যে যৌন হয়রানি হতে পারে, সেই বিষয়টিও অনুধাবন করতে পারেন না নারী শ্রমিক। এ বিষয়গুলো নজরদারি ও তদারকির আইনি সংস্থা কল-কারখানা অধিদপ্তর। কিন্তু সেই দায়িত্ব পালনের সক্ষমতা নিয়েও প্রশ্ন রয়েছে।

যোগাযোগ করা হলে শ্রম ও কর্মসংস্থান মন্ত্রণালয়ের অধীনস্থ কল-কারখানা ও প্রতিষ্ঠান পরিদর্শন অধিদপ্তরের (ডিআইএফই) সঙ্গে। সংস্থাটির অতিরিক্ত মহাপরিদর্শক ড. মো. আনোয়ার উল্লাহ বণিক বার্তাকে বলেন, শ্রম আইনে সুস্পষ্ট বলে দেয়া আছে শ্রমিকের যেকোনো ধরনের হয়রানির বিষয়ে অভিযোগ গঠন করা যাবে। এ অভিযোগ গঠনের বিভিন্ন পদ্ধতি আছে। কারখানায় অ্যাবিউজ হওয়া শ্রমিক যদি নাম প্রকাশ না করেও অভিযোগ গঠন করেন, সে বিষয়ে পদক্ষেপ আমরা গ্রহণ করব।

গবেষণায় নারী শ্রমিকের কাজের চুক্তিসংক্রান্ত বিষয়গুলোর দুর্বল পরিস্থিতি উঠে এসেছে। অ্যাপয়েনমেন্ট লেটার, পে স্লিপ, অ্যাটেনডেন্স কার্ড, আইডেনটিটি কার্ড, সার্ভিস বুক থাকার মতো আইনি বাধ্যবাধকতাগুলো যথাযথভাবে পালন করা হয় না। দেখা গেছে, ৩১ দশমিক ৩ শতাংশ নারী শ্রমিক অ্যাপয়েনমেন্ট লেটার পান না, আইডেনটিটি কার্ড পান না ২৪ দশমিক ৭ শতাংশ, পে স্লিপ পান না ৩২ শতাংশ, সার্ভিস বুক পান না ৫১ দশমিক ৩ শতাংশ এবং অ্যাটেনডেন্স কার্ড পান না ১ দশমিক ৩ শতাংশ নারী শ্রমিক।

Published link: Bonik Barta, News Paper

Study: Rights of Bangladesh’s female RMG workers still unmet

Verbal, mental and physical harassment common in workplaces

Despite being core driving force behind the RMG industry’s success, female RMG workers continues to face various problems including most of them experiencing verbal, mental, physical and sexual harassment from employers and colleagues.

Highest 84.7% of them reported experiencing verbal harassment, while 71.3% mental harassment, 20% physical harassment, 12.7% sexual harassment, and 52% experienced physical harassment from supervisors, finds a latest report.

The report titled “State of Rights Implementation of Women Ready-made Garment Workers” found that many women garment workers are not getting their rights as stipulated in the labour law of the country.

Funded by Austrian Development Cooperation, Karmojibi Nari in collaboration with the European Union and CARE Bangladesh published the report at a city hotel on Monday.

Currently, female RMG workers constitute around 55% of the 4.2 million RMG workforce in Bangladesh. However, despite having the larger share in the industry’s workforce, women workers are still plagued with various problems and are deprived of many of their rights, according to industry experts.

The RMG industry now contributes over 81 percent to Bangladesh’s export income.

The report highlighted the present status of application of labour law provisions for women workers in the areas of employment contract, working hour, rest and leave, work environment, welfare and social protection, and workplace representation. The report also focused on the state of women garment workers’ issues for example sexual and reproductive health and career prospect.

According to the report that surveyed a total of 150 workers from knit, woven, and composite factories, violation of rights provisions was found common at the workplaces of almost all workers with varied degree.

The report stated that rights provisions were not implemented fully and sometimes there are instances of partial implementation. It found that non-implementation was more frequent in areas of service book, working hour including overtime, leaves (casual, sick, annual), separate rest room, social protection like provident fund and group insurance, and representational rights.

51.3% of the workers surveyed said their employers do not provide service book, while 31.3% have no appointment letter and 24.7% do not have identity card.

Half of the total RMG workers surveyed reported working for 9-10 hours a day while rest 50% work more than 10 hours daily. 60% workers do more overtime work than the hours stipulated in the law,

70% have claimed they do not get the chance to take rest, 74.7% have the experience of doing night duty and 25.3% do not get a chance to enjoy the weekly holiday, the report states.

On the other hand, the report found that partial implementation was frequent in areas of maternity leave and day care. In the case of maternity leave many employers provided leave lesser than the required period (16 weeks), and many even provided leave without pay.

The report further found that besides the rights, many other gender specific needs of the women workers remain unmet at the workplaces.

Day care facilities are not available at the workplaces of majority workers and many workplaces do not have arrangement for breast-feeding. Moreover, in the factories that have the facilities, workers were not satisfied with the arrangements.

The findings of the report also stated that most workers do not receive special treatment during menstruation, and do not get sanitary napkin at subsidized cost. Employers do not provide long-term leave in case of pregnancy related complexities.

Furthermore, the issue of security during night work is not taken seriously, and workers are not provided with transport facility during night duty.

The report recommended strengthening the enforcement of labour law and suggested the need of active enforcement efforts from the government. It also emphasized that to gain their rights, workers need to be more aware and conscious.

Employers need to be held responsible for their workers and responsibility must be upheld for violations of rights and devising strategies for evading legal obligations. Other recommendations of the report included sensitizing employers on gender issue and ensuring workplaces with workers’ upgradation or promotion policy.

Published link: Dhaka Tribune, News Paper

85pc female RMG workers face verbal abuse: survey

85pc female RMG workers face verbal abuse: survey

Worker Safety Forum convener Hameeda Hossain speaks at a report launching programme held at the Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka on Monday. Karmojibi Nari president Pratima Paul Majumder, Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies executive director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, National Garment Workers Federation president Amirul Haque Amin and Rajshahi University professor Jakir Hossain were present, among others. — New Age photo

——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Almost 85 per cent of female workers in the readymade garment sector face verbal harassment in their workplace, according to a report launched Monday. The watch report showed 84.7 per cent of female workers in the RMG factories faced verbal harassment including scolding and use of slang by their superiors, while 71.3 per cent of female workers experienced mental harassment at their workplace.
Workers complained that the authorities scolded them regularly and very often they had to hear slang used indicating their parents and threat of expulsion from job, the report said.

Karmojibi Nari and CARE Bangladesh jointly commissioned the report titled ‘State of Rights Implementation of Women Ready-Made Garment Workers’. Rajshahi University professor Jakir Hossain conducted the study. ‘Majority of the workers have brought the allegation that they are harassed mostly by the supervisors — physical (52 per cent) and verbal (70 per cent) — adding the fact that line-chief, floor in charge, and production managers also often harass them,’ the watch report said.
The report also showed that 20 per cent of female workers experienced physical harassment, while 12.7 per cent of them faced sexual harassment at their workplace.

The most common physical and sexual harassment was slap and push on different parts of their body and unwanted touch in their body and offering illicit love affairs, it said. At a meeting held to share the findings of the watch report at the Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka, Jakir Hossain said that 150 workers were selected from Dhaka and Gazipur for the interview and the quantitative approach and employed survey method had been adopted for conducting the study. Karmojibi Nari president Pratima Paul Majumder presided over the event while Worker Safety Forum convener Hameeda Hossain attended as chief guest.

According to the study, many garment workers are deprived of their lawful rights related to employment contracts like appointment letter, identity card, pay slip, service book and attendance card.
It showed that 31.3 per cent respondents had no appointment letter, 32 per cent got no pay slip from their employers and 24.7 per cent had no identify card. The study said that about 15 per cent respondents informed that maternity leave was not given at their factories while 7.3 per cent of the respondents even did not know whether workers of their factories were allowed to enjoy maternity leave.
Seventy-eight per cent of the respondents claimed that maternity leave was given to the workers of their factories but employers did not follow the legal provisions fully.

The study found that the factories of 36.7 per cent respondents allowed maternity leave for two and three months instead of four months.
It found lack of arrangement of social protection measures including retirement benefit, health insurance, group insurance, provident fund, gratuity, skill development initiative, transport support, and residential arrangement. According to the survey, 91.3 per cent of employers do not provide transport while 92 per cent have no arrangement for accommodation. About sixty per cent workers do more overtime work than the hours stipulated in the law — maximum two hours daily, the study found.

It said that 27.3 per cent surveyed workers reported that on average they worked three hours daily as overtime while 28 per cent of the workers reported that they worked five hours and more as overtime daily. The study suggested making changes in some provisions of the Bangladesh Labour Act for eliminating harassment and discrimination at the workplace. It also suggested proper implementation of the labour act to ensure gender specific needs of female workers at the workplace. At the report launching meeting, experts said that the government should ensure decent life for workers through proper implementation of laws and rules.

Khondoker Golam Moazzem, research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, said that workers had been deprived of proper payment of overtime as factory authorities did not provide the allowance following rules. He suggested identifying whether buyers are responsible for ensuring decent life for RMG workers. Combined Garment Workers Federation president Nazma Akter said, ‘Forming anti-harassment committees is more difficult than forming a trade union in the factories.’ She said that the study should also include the wage structure and living standard of workers as the quality of job and workers’ life were still in dire straits. Amirul Haque Amin, president of National Garment Workers Federation, said that without changing the condition of workers the graduation of the country to a middle-income one was impossible.

He said that the government should work out what amount of money should be the minimum wage for the workers in a middle-income country. Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies executive director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed said, ‘Political parties, civil society and economists have responsibility to the four million workers engaged in the readymade garment sector in Bangladesh and they should raise their voice for setting a reasonable wages for the RMG workers.’ He also urged the government to implement labour laws to protect the workers’ rights so that no one faces job termination due to filling complaint over harassment

Published link: New Age BD, News Paper

Pin It on Pinterest