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Development. Copyright © 2001 The Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (200106) 44:2; 75–80; 017707.

SID On-line Dialogue

Young Garment Workers in Bangladesh: Raising the rights question1 SUSAN BISSELL

ABSTRACT Susan Bissell explores the complex issues around child rights and child employment, on the basis of her two years of research in Dhaka. While not writing in defence of child labour, she argues that child labour elimination must be redressed within the wider context of women’s and children’s rights. To do otherwise could further violate the human rights of women and children, and confound real attempts to find sustainable solutions. KEYWORDS children; health; labour; poverty; purdah

Background The threat of American trade sanctions against countries employing under-age workers led to thousands of Bangladeshi children losing their jobs – an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 under-age workers were employed in the garment trade in the period between 1993 and 1995.2 When the retrenched workers appeared on Dhaka streets, local NGOs and others expressed their concern. This resulted in the signing and implementation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among UNICEF, the International Labour Office in Dhaka (ILO) and the BGMEA. The MOU was designed to move children from their workplaces to schools established on their behalf, contained provisions for partial income substitution, and promised vocational and skills training at a later date. Raising the rights question The trade bill and subsequent events raised some important questions about both women’s and children’s rights. Considering that those most affected by the situation were women and female children, this is unsurprising. In addition to the traditional debates about a child’s right to education and to be free from exploitation, other rights focused on included:

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Development 44(2): SID On-line Dialogue • rights to work and to a standard of living; • the right to choice and to freedom of association; • the right to be consulted in decisions. Livelihoods and social capital In a world where childhood is socially constructed as an ‘ideal’ place where needs and rights are met, a discussion of children’s livelihoods would seem misplaced. However, the childhood of many of the world’s young people contrasts starkly to the idyllic world constructed in the West by the West, or by middle and upper middle class advocates in the East. Nor is it the ideal childhood under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). On the contrary, earning a living and making livelihood decisions and choices are very much a part of childhood in Bangladesh. Discussions of livelihoods, in this case urban livelihoods, are closely related to emerging and evolving notions of social capital. Wood (1999) describes social capital as a concept embodying the connections between social relationships, sustainable livelihood and poverty elimination. He notes that: In contexts of highly imperfect markets, corrupt state practices, and patriarchal norms, poor people (and especially women) face a problematic search for security, in income flows and stable access to stocks and services. They are obliged to manage vulnerability through investing in and maintaining various forms of social capital which produce various short-term, immediate outcomes and practical needs while postponing and putting at permanent risk more desirable forms of social capital which offer the strategic prospect of supporting needs and maintaining rights in the longer term. (Wood, 1999: 2)

Children were, in my research, caught up in this social capital dilemma, many of them coming from single parent households. A few of these were single male parents, but most of them were women. In many cases children were active participants in their own maintenance of forms of social capital, securing a standard of living as defined in the short list of rights mentioned earlier.

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the sector showed more promise as an exportearner than any other industry. What started as a handful of factories and managers grew to number more than 2500 garment manufacturers and exporters by 1998. Exports rose from US$250,000 in 1979–80 to US$1.25 billion in 1993 (Quddus, 1993). Approximately 1.5 million garment workers are employed by the sector, with about 1 million of them based in Dhaka. Eighty percent of this workforce is women between the ages of 14 and 40, and the majority of them are migrants from rural areas. These are the women seen on Dhaka’s streets early in the morning, moving in droves of coloured saris to the factories, most wearing make-up, their bangles – glass and gold – jingling on their wrists. The predominance of female labourers contrasts starkly to the gender imbalance among garment factory owners, and managers, where 94.4 percent are male (Quddus, 1993: 34). Quddus notes that ‘this is perhaps no worse than in other industries in Bangladesh . . . best explained in terms of the traditional Islamic, male dominated culture in business and commerce’ (Quddus, 1993: 38). Reasons for seeking garment work The need to secure immediate survival and the search for security forces slum dwellers to accept exploitative relationships. Searching for economic security, and often in response to shocks, was the recurring motivation for children seeking garment work. My use of the term ‘shocks’ is a departure from traditional economic terminology. I am referring to events or incidents which upset the everyday routine of the household or of individuals within that household. The shocks described by the children tended to be limited to their own households, rather than be widely experienced by the community. In the case of the girl below, the ‘shock’ was a family illness:

Garment work

My father used to work as a house painter. But now he doesn’t work anymore. He has been sick for two years. He has high blood pressure.

The production of ready-made garments for export began in Bangladesh in the late 1970s. By 1983,

You were living in the village. Why did your family move to Dhaka?

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Bissell: Young Garment Workers in Bangladesh My father became sick. He couldn’t work anymore. We didn’t have money enough to live on. We didn’t have a big brother to support us. So we moved to Dhaka. Then my elder sister worked, and I also worked in the garments. We sold everything we had, our small bit of land in the village, to treat my father. Now he is a little better. But he can’t work. (Interview with Shahinor, age 12, Dhaka, 15 March 1998)

This situation was not uncommon among the children who participated in my study. Many reported the illness of a male family member, in most cases the principal bread winner, as the primary reason they sought work in a garment factory. Some children referred to their mother’s illness as the reason for seeking factory work, but these cases tended to be where the mother was the head of the household.3 How did you join the garments? My father started to get sick. Then my mother told us to join the garments, so we joined. And from there, I came to this school. (Interview with Laila, age 11, Dhaka, 10 March 1998) Why do you have to work in a garment factory? There is hardship in the family. My father is an old man now. He can’t work regularly. He works for a few days then he gets sick for a few days, and he keeps going on like that. Your father does not drive a rickshaw all the time? He can’t. He gets sick quite often. (Interview with Rokshana, age 11, Dhaka, 22 February 1998)

Death of a family member was another reason why children sought work in garment factories. This girl describes the death of her father and the impact it had on her: I have three big sisters who are married. They live with their husbands. And I have two sisters who live at home. My father used to drive a rickshaw. After he started to get sick he got into selling fruits and vegetables. But soon after he opened the shop he died. After he died we became very helpless. My two big sisters were already married and live separately. My third sister was working in the garments. Her income was not enough for the family. So, she took me into garments. There I was working as a helper and I was about to become an operator, my sister was teaching me everything. But that’s when the owners made a bunch of us leave our jobs, they said that we were

too small to work in garments and they can’t keep us anymore. Otherwise they’ll get fined 35,000 taka per child worker found in the factory. (Interview with Lailey, age 11, Dhaka, 31 March 1998)

In the absence of an extended family and without access to compensatory social services, or any form of life insurance benefit, children like this girl felt compelled and had little choice but to work. Methods of recruitment The ways in which children found factory work merit emphasis as they counter suggestions that the garment industry was, and is, built on the backs of child labour (USIS, 1993). There is nothing in their responses indicating that children were solicited as employees in some kind of deliberate, industry-wide attempt to seek exploitable employees. Instead, either with a family member or with friends, children and/or their parents, they sought places in the factories. This sort of active employment-seeking in formal sector urban employment is a relatively new phenomenon in Bangladesh, particularly for girls and women. As Kibria (1995: 293) notes: ‘the subordination of women in the traditional Bangladeshi family system . . . is powerfully supported by the institution of purdah, or female seclusion’, adding that ‘cultural traditions are not experienced by people in uniform ways’ (Kibria, 1995: 294). The author says that since the mid-1980s the ‘different’ cultural experience for many women and their families has been their absorption into the garment industry. The entry of women into the workforce outside of the family home depends upon the need of the family (Hossain, Johan and Sobhan, 1990: 42–3). Accordingly, purdah is a status symbol, practised by the middle and upper classes who can afford to have their women at home and out of the workforce (Hossain, Johan and Sobhan, 1990: 46). Against this, it is interesting to note that the participation of females in wage employment may be considered liberating and empowering where changes have been introduced in life patterns, as well as in the values held by workers and their families, about women’s roles and responsibilities and position (Hossain, Johan and Sobhan, 1990:

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Development 44(2): SID On-line Dialogue 98). A report of the Population Council suggests that: Although family members may have reservations about their daughters or wives entering the formal labour force, the income that garment work can provide means that economic necessity prevails. In many cases a male relative retains control over the household budget, but despite this the valuable contribution to family income that garment workers make has important implications for their age at marriage and role in family decision-making. In addition, garment workers experience increased mobility and interaction with people outside their immediate kin networks. The resulting later marriage, increased say in who they marry, and ability to own their own dowry are likely to have a powerful influence on the lifetime fertility of garment workers, both through a shorter reproductive period and through a stronger position in their marital household. (Population Council, 1998: 2)

Kibria concurs with this view: It is worth noting that the overwhelming majority of the women garment workers spoke of their employment in positive terms, as an activity that had enhanced their sense of self-esteem and worth in the household. Because of the paucity of other job opportunities, they valued the presence of the garment factories in the country. (Kibria, 1995: 307)

Considering this, the implications of the sudden retrenchment of girls from garment factories were far-reaching for both economic and psycho-social reasons. In my sample, there were no distinctions between boys and girls in terms of the rationale for seeking garment work, or in terms of the manner in which jobs were obtained. There were, however, far more girls than boys in my sample, reflecting the overall female bias in the industry. While there is sex segregation in the industry, this was not true among the children I interviewed. Reports of ‘management, supervisors and cutting operators being predominantly men, while women mostly operate sewing machines and work as unskilled helpers’ (Kibria, 1995) did not hold true for children – boys and girls alike were treated as unskilled helpers. What salaries were used for at home 78

In very few cases did the children describe their garment factory earnings being used for the

purchase of luxury items. Unsubstantiated criticism is often leveled at poor families with working children who purchase a television or radio. A few of the homes I visited, in the economically poorest of Dhaka’s slums, did have a radio or television. I found myself, throughout the course of my research, wondering whether having a television was really such a crime, regardless of whose earnings were used to purchase it. Life is extremely difficult and there is little in the way of entertainment or relaxation for people struggling to make ends meet. Who really has a right to say that earnings must only be used to ‘get by’ and for the sustenance of the family? A television in a household is often accessed by neighbours and relatives, is a source of amusement, and can carry some important public health messages. One girl mentioned that her salary was saved and a sewing machine later purchased, with which her mother was able to tailor clothes to sell from home; the girl’s wage allowed capital investment that enhanced family income generation. This was the exception in the findings. A boy, the sole income earner in his single parent (female) headed household, referred to saving some of his salary, and returning it to the village where his uncle was purchasing land to which the boy’s family could later return. Again, savings that would be available to use in this way were unusual among the children in the study sample: in most cases, any earnings were disbursed immediately for subsistence. There is little doubt, on the basis of these findings, that ‘survival’ was part of the initial strategy behind families allowing their children to be employed in garment factories. Supporters of trade sanctions like the Harkin Bill suggest that the survival of a few families will need to be ‘sacrificed’ if the overall good of ‘the poor’ is considered the ultimate goal (see Rothstein, 1995). I think that this displays an ignorance of the survival and livelihood strategies of poor families, as well as a complete misinterpretation of the ‘adult labour substitutability’ discussed earlier in this chapter. Families are singularly preoccupied with survival, and substituting adults for children in the workplace is impractical. Few of the children in my sample had unemployed family members, particularly given the high rate of single parent households evident in

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Bissell: Young Garment Workers in Bangladesh

Figure 1. A former garment worker studying in an MOU school Photo credit: Shezad Noorani, 1998

my research and that of others (Taher, Rahman and Gunn, 1995; Salway et al., 1997). Conclusions On face value, the introduction of a bill to end child labour would seem like a good thing, consistent with article 32 of the CRC pertaining specifically to child labour. However, the rights implications, for women and children, of such an approach to child labour elimination are much more complex. There are two key points to consider – the indivisibility of children’s rights, and the interdependence of women’s and children’s rights. By the former I mean that the rights of a child to eat, to be free from exploitation, and to have clothing and shelter ought to be considered alongside each other. No one article takes precedence over another, but if one is to be supreme it is Article 3 stating that ‘the best interests of the child’ is paramount. In addition, something was totally overlooked when the trade bill was being introduced: children have a right to express their opinions on such matters. Consultation with children would surely have resulted in a bill emphasizing livelihood as well as education concerns. This particular case also illustrates the relationship between women’s rights, and a denial thereof, and children’s rights. Many of the retrenched

female workers were actually adolescent girls, for whom garment employment was the key to delayed age at marriage, to economic independence and to an increased role in decision making at a household level. This is not to ignore the value of education and the rights of these girls to participate in schools, but there are/were compelling reasons to learn more about the totality of their lives. Finally, it is at least in part a denial of the rights of women in Bangladesh that resulted in the employment of their daughters in the first place. Most of the girls who participated in my research and who were from single parent households lived with their mothers. These were women whose husbands died, divorced or deserted them. In the absence of extended family, social services and/or legal recourse – arguably a denial of women’s legal, social and cultural rights, as well as a denial of children’s rights to the care and support of both parents – single female parents opted to work. Neither was this work financially lucrative nor did it allow them to provide the kind of child care needed. As a result, their daughters sought jobs, or remained at home with full time child care responsibilities for younger siblings. In a few cases, when girls lost their garment jobs they did enroll in the schools especially set up for them under the MOU, but they were accompanied by a younger brother or sister (see photo above).

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Development 44(2): SID On-line Dialogue This article is not a defence of child labour. However, as abhorrent as the practice may be in some cases, child labour elimination must be redressed within the wider context of women’s and

Notes 1 This article is based on data from five years of work in Bangladesh, and specifically from research conducted in 1997 and 1998, in Dhaka. The author drew from a study population of approximately 10,000 children, all of whom were enumerated in a UNICEF, ILO, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) factory-wide survey conducted to determine how many children would need to be accommodated in NGO schools, once they were released from employment. The study sample included approximately 225 children. Roughly two-thirds of the sample were girls between the ages of 12 and 14. 2 This figure is an estimate for two reasons: most children do not have birth certificates so age determination is difficult; and few, if any, records are kept about the youngest members of the garment labour force.

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children’s rights. To do otherwise is possibly to further violate the human rights of women and children, and to further confound real attempts to find sustainable solutions.

3 Salway et al. (1997: 94) in their study of female headed households reported particularly high levels of morbidity. Forty percent of male workers in the study, and 30 percent of female workers, reported loss of work because of illness (ibid.: 95). References Hossain, H., R. Johan and S. Sobhan (1990) No Better Option? Industrial Women Workers in Bangladesh. Dhaka: Fair Print. Kibria, N. (1995) ‘Culture, Social Class, and Income Control in the Lives of Women Garment Workers in Bangladesh’, Gender and Society 9(3): 289–309. Population Council (1998) Female Garment Workers Study in Bangladesh – Project Summary. New York: The Population Council Inc. Quddus, M. (1993) ‘Entrepreneurship in the Apparel Export Industry of Bangladesh’, Journal of Asian Business 9(4): 24–46.

Rothstein, R. (1995/96) ‘The Case for Labour Standards’, Boston Review, December/January. URL: http://www. princeton.edu/~speac/html/ case_for_labor_standards.html. Salway, S., A. Rahman, S. Rahman, M. Kiggins and J. Pryer (1997) ‘Urban Livelihoods Study: Preliminary Findings from the Quantitative Panel Survey’. Dhaka: Proshika and London: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (unpublished). Taher, M., W. Rahman and S. Gunn (1995) ‘Child Labour and the Trade Debate: New Initiatives by Bangladesh’. Dhaka: ILO (unpublished mimeo). USIS (1993) ‘Harkin Child Labor Bill Aims for Long-Term Development’, USIS News. Washington: USIS. Wood, G. (1999) ‘Adverse Incorporation: Another Dark Side of Social Capital’. Oxford: presentation notes for Meeting on 2001 World Development Report on Poverty.