Bangladesh: Safety Reforms In Garment Sector Risk ‘Losing Momentum’

About one-fifth of Bangladesh’s ready-made garment factories do not meet fire, electrical and structural safety standards 11 years after the collapse of Rana Plaza that left more than 1,100 garment workers dead, according to an industry monitoring body.

 

Garment factory in Bangladesh. Photo Credit: Fahad Faisal, Wikipedia Commons

 May 4, 2024  

By BenarNews

By Reyad Hossain

The collapse of the factory complex was the deadliest disaster ever for Bangladesh’s garment sector, a tragedy that put the spotlight on poor conditions for workers churning out cheap clothing for Western brands and retailers.

More than a decade later, many factories are safer thanks to initiatives sponsored by international apparel labels and backed by the Bangladesh government. But the work is unfinished and in danger of stalling, according to labor unions, the government and safety experts. 

Officials at the RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), which is responsible for safety monitoring in the sector, say remediation of safety problems has slowed and poses a risk to workers. 

Some seven hundred garment factories – about 20% of the 3,500 operating nationwide – have completed less than 90% of remediation mandated after the disaster, according to the RSC, which is made up of factories, retailers and unions. Only about a quarter of RSC monitored factories had rectified all fire safety deficiencies as of last February, the council said in a statement on its website Tuesday.

Safety improvements are being compromised by financial pressures, a lack of coordination, confusion over standards and differences among key stakeholders, industry insiders say. Rights groups meanwhile claim that a wider culture of corporate impunity for workplace injuries and deaths persists in the garment sector. 

“Though the reform initiative was started 11 years ago, we still see there are a large number of factories out of compliance which is very unfortunate,” RSC board member Aminul Haque Amin told BenarNews.     

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), which represents about 2,000 factories employing 2.5 million workers, held a meeting Tuesday with the owners of factories struggling to meet remediation targets. 

BGMEA President S.M. Mannan Kochi said while some factories were “lagging behind in compliance,” many of the remediation problems were created by supervisory bodies, which were sending inexperienced engineers to carry out inspections.

Ripon Bhuyan, the managing director of garment exporter R. Tex Fashions Limited, said the remediation work required by authorities was putting financial strain on his business. 

“It costs 60 lakhs ($5,448) to renovate each factory,” he told BenarNews. “In the meantime, workers’ wages have increased, but the price of clothes has not.”

Reforms slow

Within months of the Rana Plaza collapse in April 2013, two buyer groups, the European-led Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh and the American-led Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, set up initiatives to raise working conditions in factories to international standards. 

Under the initiatives, more than 2,000 factories were inspected to identify structural, fire and electrical hazards and a plan was made to implement the improvements.

While these helped raise safety standards, labor unions say remediation at garment factories slowed after the locally created RSC took over responsibility for monitoring in 2020.

Towhidur Rahman, president of Bangladesh Apparels Workers Federation, said the seriousness with which factories took safety improvements under the Accord and Alliance has “decreased quite a lot” under the new system. 

The situation was even worse in factories supervised by the government initiative, he said.

“If this continues, the reform of the garment sector will lose momentum and it will cause accidents in the future,” he told BenarNews.

The Ministry of Labour is currently monitoring remediation at around 400 garment factories across Bangladesh.

Remediation, however, is on track at only 30% of those factories, said Inspector General Abdur Rahim Khan, from the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments.

Khan told BenarNews that many small factories did not have money to renovate their factories to international standards.

In recent months, the Bangladeshi garment sector, which employs about 4 million people and accounts for roughly 13% of GDP, has been squeezed by rising costs from wage hikes, energy inflation and currency volatility.

Worker rights

Analysts and international monitors say that conditions in Bangladeshi garment factories have come a long way in the past 11 years.

The Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS) reported that, between the Rana Plaza collapse and 2022, at least 18 people were killed in workplace incidents at garment factories. 

For comparison, some 1,548 workers were killed in garment factory accidents between 2005-2013.

In recent years, the government has also launched a pilot scheme for injured workers to receive medical treatment and compensation and established a National Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Policy.

Despite this, workers still face harassment, intimidation and violence, as well as legal hurdles when attempting to speak out on low wages and poor workplace conditions, according to Amnesty International.

In June last year, Shahidul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation’s Gazipur unit, was fatally beaten following his visit to the Prince Jacquard Sweater Ltd. company where he negotiated over wages on behalf of workers at the factory on the outskirts of Dhaka. 

Amnesty estimated that at least four garment workers died during protests around the national minimum wage between October and November 2023.

“We call on the government to remove the limits on compensation for occupational injuries under labor law, ensure those affected receive adequate compensation, and introduce a national data repository on workplace deaths and injuries to ensure transparency and fill the current gaps in official data,” Nadia Rahman, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for South Asia, said in a statement.

The rights group said since the protests in 2023, at least 35 criminal cases have been filed against garment workers with the First Information Reports accusing around 161 named workers and an estimated total of between 35,900 to 44,450 unnamed workers for taking part in the protests.

In most cases, the reports were filed by factories who are believed to sell to major global fashion brands and retailers, Amnesty said.

BenarNews

BenarNews’ mission is to provide readers with accurate news and information that reflects the complex and ever-changing world around them. With homepages in Bengali, Thai, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia and English, BenarNews brings timely news to its diverse audience. Copyright BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews

Florida’s Faux-Meat Ban Slaughtered Free Enterprise – OpEd

BUSYBODY ANTI LIBERTARIAN DESANTIS

 

File photo of Ron DeSantis. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore, Wikipedia Commons

 May 4, 2024

By AIER

By Paul Mueller

The Florida legislature recently decided that, along with deregulating electric-vehicle charging stations and giving kids excused absences for 4-H and FFA activity, it would restrict the “manufacturing, distributing, holding, or offering” of cultivated or “lab-grown” meat in SB 1084. Several states with Republican majorities, such as Alabama, Arizona, and Tennessee, have considered similar legislation. While Governor DeSantis labeled cultivated meat part of a “whole ideological agenda,” this provision has the fingerprints of powerful lobbies like the Florida Poultry Federation and the Florida Cattlemen’s Association all over it.

These lobbies have an obvious economic interest: reducing potential competition. Restricting alternative products means they can charge consumers higher prices. But why would Florida legislators agree to ban cultivated meat? No evidence has yet been offered as to why the FDA and other existing regulatory oversight is insufficient. 

Instead, it seems that legislators merely find the idea of cultivated meat disagreeable. Take for example the comments of Representative Dean Black, who just so happens to be a rancher: “Cultured meat is not meat…. It is simply a bacterial culture.” He added, “I think they can make it on the Moon and export it on Mars, and it’s fine to have Martian meat as well.” Even Governor DeSantis has weighed in, “We’re not going to have fake meat.”

Finding cultivated meat unappetizing is their prerogative, of course. But their personal distaste for the idea of cultivated meat does not warrant banning the product altogether. All of us find certain things distasteful: squid, heavy metal music, the behavior of celebrities, the color of our neighbor’s house or car, and so much more. But our own dislikes do not warrant legal sanctions. If they did, we would quickly find ourselves in a world where everything was prohibited. We can always find someone who objects to a good or a practice.

Florida has taken a step towards that world with SB 1084. This ban reduces choice for consumers today and means they will have to pay higher prices for meat. But even worse, the ban reduces possible innovation for the future. The potential benefits of cultivated meat are significant. Less land and water need to be used; fewer antibiotics; less slaughter. And who knows what else?

We’ve seen similar forms of innovation create major benefits in the cheese market. A particular enzyme, Rennet, has long been used to convert milk into cheese. This enzyme was primarily taken from the stomachs of calves, lambs, and young goats. Then scientists discovered how to create a similar synthetic enzyme in a laboratory, reducing the need to slaughter young animals for the enzyme. Market innovation in kerosene in the late 19thcentury single-handedly reversed the dramatic decline in the Sperm Whale population. These whales had been hunted for their oil, previously the main source of lighting. 

Although cultivated meat has ties to the sustainability movement, allowing its development and sale is a far cry from environmental tyranny, like requiring a certain number of electrical charging stations or suggesting that Americans should start eating bugs. No one is mandating the consumption of cultivated meat. Nor should people feel that they ought to consume cultivated meat because of its potential upsides. Companies producing cultivated meat will have to persuade consumers to buy their product just like everyone else.

Allowing free competition doesn’t mean the state has nothing to do. Requiring clear labeling for lab-grown meat clearly falls under its purview. The public interest is served when fraud, deception, and misleading labeling are prevented. Unfortunately, the Florida legislature has gone far beyond this, at the behest of the ranchers’ lobby.

Besides reducing consumer choice due the legislators’ personal preferences, or perhaps to pad their campaign contributions, banning cultivated meat will make it harder for Florida to attract and retain venture capital and entrepreneurs who fuel innovation. Afterall, there is virtually no end to what else could be banned in Tallahassee, or any other state capital, just because a couple dozen people find something unpalatable—or rather inimical to their bottom line.

• About the author: Paul Mueller is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He received his PhD in economics from George Mason University. Previously, Dr. Mueller taught at The King’s College in New York City.
• Source: This article was published by AIER

AIER

The American Institute for Economic Research educates people on the value of personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government, and sound money. AIER’s ongoing scientific research demonstrates the importance of these principles in advancing peace, prosperity, and human progress. AIER is a nonpartisan research and education nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization focused on the importance of markets, with a full range of programs and publications on the social sciences with a primary emphasis on economics.

 

Albania Sees Rise In Killings, Crime Starting From Toxic Online Content – Analysis

 May 4, 2024 

By Eurasia Review

Experts say legislation is needed to address toxic social media content that too often turns into offline violence in Albania, but there are fears authorities will seek again to exploit the issue for political gain.

By Fjori Sinoruka

In December last year, a well-known Albanian TikToker posted a video “confessing” that he had hired someone to plant a bomb at the house of a rival; the TikToker’s car had been set on fire, and he was out for revenge.

The two accounts spend hours live-streaming their feud; one has more than 380,000 followers, and other more than 250,000. The language they use is violent, promotes crime, and is derogatory towards women. But they are making money and have even appeared on Albanian television to discuss how to monetise social media.

Violent, toxic language on social media, particularly TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, is on the rise in Albania, spilling over into offline harassment, violence and, in several cases over recent months, deaths.

In February, a 27-year-old woman killed herself in the capital, Tirana, after an explicit photo of her was shared on TikTok and a 39-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of “causing suicide”; in March, two teenagers were arrested in Fier near the coast on suspicion of killing another person over a ‘like’ on TikTok; last year, in April, a man shot and wounded two people after an argument on TikTok over music; the same month, in the port city of Durres, two men were injured in a fight that began on TikTok before moving offline; and in May 2023, a 15-year-old boy was killed and friend injured in a fight that initially began on TikTok.

Meeting representatives of TikTok and pupils of a Tirana secondary school in February, Albanian Interior Minister Taulant Balla said “alarm bells” were ringing.

“There is uncontrolled language on this platform,” he said. “The messages contain completely inappropriate language. And then there is also the promotion of criminal activities, as well as the promotion of narcotics.”

Rights experts say legislation is required, but there is nothing as yet in the pipeline.

“First, a clear legal framework governing digital rights and responsibilities is needed,” said Megi Reci, a lawyer and researcher on digital security at the Institute for Democracy and Mediation, IDM. “These include laws protecting freedom of expression and privacy online, as well as laws against cyber-bullying, harassment, stalking, sexual blackmail, or hate speech online.”

“In their absence, the level of impunity is high and is an enabling factor,” Reci told BIRN. “In Albania, there have been cases when online threats or concerns have been followed by murder or suicide. They were held responsible only after the ‘physical’ crime took place.”

Playing politics?

Mirgit Vataj, head of the Order of Social Workers, which issues licences for social workers, called for young people to be taught in school about how to behave online and for public institutions and the companies behind such platforms to cooperate on regulation.

“Sometimes it is very difficult to prevent since the Internet is a space that knows no borders and the most effective strategy that can be applied in such cases is to start a massive national campaign to make young people aware of how to use social platforms responsibly and to talk about what is considered ‘cyber hygiene’, so that we have a healthy environment where hate speech, insulting language, threats – which can turn into physical violence – are not used,” Vataj told BIRN.

“Unfortunately, in Albania, violent language is used as a way to increase visibility.”

Altin Hazizaj, executive director of the NGO Children’s Human Rights Centre of Albania, CRCA, which runs the I Sigurt [Safe] hotline as part of its efforts to combat cyber violence against minors, warned of a rise in “toxic masculinity” on all social platforms but particularly TikTok and Instagram, “which above all affects teenage boys”.

“Likewise, the models that are transmitted to them are just as toxic, with images and music full of violence, luxurious lives with expensive cars and sex, without asking how this income is created for this kind of life,” Hazizaj told BIRN.

“The lack of proper parental care and education, together with the lack of proper mechanisms, rules and education in school, is increasingly leading teenagers along a path where violence is the norm.”

In Albania, however, there are concerns that the authorities may seek to capitalise on such fears to clamp down on online freedoms in order to win a political advantage.

In 2019, the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama sought to regulate online media through a package of laws that Rama claimed would fight defamation. Civil rights groups, however, said the package threatened to censor legitimate criticism of the government and, after a three-year battle, the Socialists withdrew the proposal.

When a 41-year-old woman killed herself in January in Durres after being bullied on TikTok, parliament speaker Lindita Nikolla, a member Rama’s Socialists, announced the lawmakers would immediately debate “changes to legislation on online media, the penal code, and laws dealing with cybernetic crime, attacks, offensive and aggressive content on social networks”.

Scientific shark study resumes in New Caledonia

Patrick Decloitre, Correspondent French Pacific Desk


New Caledonia's Southern Province will tag 200 sharks with transmitting devices Photo: IRD

A scientific study on shark presence and behaviour is to resume shortly in New Caledonia's Southern Province, where two incidents in February last year prompted an indiscriminate culling campaign.

A similar campaign initiated five years ago also focused on tiger sharks and bulldog sharks, but it was aborted.

The new project will be carried out in association with French Research Institute IRD.

It will be deployed on seven sites in New Caledonia's Southern province, including beaches in Nouméa.

French research institute IRD representative for New Caledonia France Bailly, Southern Province's deputy Vice-President Gil Brial and French Commissioner Grégory Lecru sign an agreement for shark survey 29 April 2024 Photo: rrb

The study will involve tagging two hundred specimens of tiger and bulldog sharks so their movements and behaviours can be monitored thanks to transmitters implanted in their stomachs.

Another part of the study will rely on "environmental DNA", which involves seawater sample collection to detect traces of shark cells, IRD researcher Laurent Vigliola told a press conference.

"Using all these technologies, we'll try to establish a sort of mapping of places where (sharks) are more present on a seasonal basis,", he said.

The study is scheduled to be carried out over a period of four years, for an estimated cost of about US$2-million, co-funded by France for 75 percent.

Danger shark no swimming sign on Nouméa beach in New Caledonia Photo: Southern province New Caledonia

In January and February 2023, three shark attacks took place on Nouméa beaches and one Australian tourist died.

This prompted a systematic culling campaign in response when an estimated 120 bulldog and tiger sharks were killed in Nouméa bay.

The culling was stopped by a series of court rulings nullifying the decision made by the Nouméa municipality.

The court justified its decision by pointing out there was not enough scientific knowledge to carry out this systematic culling, which also caused significant collateral damage to other non-shark species.

 

Ethiopia Beyond Pretoria: Is Another War Imminent? – OpEd

 May 4, 2024  

By Graham Peebles

As Western governments and partisan media concentrate on the genocide in Gaza and war in Ukraine, the Amhara genocide in Ethiopia and the simmering conflicts in the Amhara region remain largely ignored.

The Ethiopian government, led by Prime-Minister Abiy Ahmed is, directly or indirectly, behind virtually every act of ethnic violence in the country.

Within the Amhara region of the country fighting, which many believe constitutes war, between the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and the Fano, has been raging with varying degrees of intensity since April 2023.

Fano is an Amhara armed (often poorly armed) group, made up of men and women of various ages and backgrounds from within the community. Historically a youth movement, a volunteer force, charged with defending their village/town/city from attack.

In the current conflict the malign forces come in the uniformed shape of the ENDF and recently, TPLF (Tigray People Liberation Front) forces. The same TPLF that in November 2020 went to war with the Ethiopian State and tried to violently overthrow the government.

The United Nations estimate 600,000 were killed in two years of fighting (making it the deadliest war of the 21 Century), however Ethiopian sources believe the figure is over 1 million; in addition millions were displaced. Much of the fighting occurred in the Amhara and Afar regions, which border Tigray, to the south and east respectively.

Under the auspices of the African Union and with American meddlers close at hand, on 3 November 2022 the waring parties signed The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) in Pretoria, South Africa. The CoHA was hailed as a peace treaty and the country breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The CoHA is littered with noble intentions, most of which have not been realised. For example, the commitment to “respect fundamental human rights and democratic norms and principles”. Human rights in Ethiopia are trampled on, as for democratic norms and principles, there is no democracy in Ethiopia, and no observation of democratic principles.

Over and above the basic agreement to stop fighting, the TPLF promised to disarm, to “refrain from conscription, training, deployment, mobilisation, or preparation for conflict and hostilities”, and to stop “aiding and abetting, supporting or collaborating with, any armed or subversive group in any parts of the country.’

The government, for its part, agreed to remove the terrorist designation of the TPLF. Thereby welcoming the enemy back into the political space.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the TPLF has retained its guns, and it is widely reported that they recently took delivery of heavy weaponry from the very same government they tried to overthrow.

TPLF Join the Party

While war between the TPLF and the government may have stopped, in the 18 months since Pretoria, for Amhara communities living in Oromia and parts of Amhara there has been no peace, far from it.

The Amhara ethnic group is the largest or second largest (depending on who you believe) in the country. Amhara communities have been oppressed for generations, but since Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, persecution of Amhara people living in Oromia specifically, has morphed into genocide.

Tens of thousands of Amhara men, women and children, have been killed (estimates range between 30 – 50,000), hundreds of thousands arrested, over three million displaced. Oromo extremists (Oromo Liberation Army or Shene), Oromo Special Forces under the control of the Oromo Regional Authority (ORA), and the ENDF are carrying out the ethnic slaughter. Behind all of these various armed groups sits the federal government and Abiy Ahmed, himself an Oromo.

In recent months the TPLF, with the backing of the ENDF, have attacked towns in Northern Amhara. The area, which the TPLF are claiming to be part of Tigray, was ‘colonised’ by Tigray settlements during the TPLF’s time in power, but historically sits with Amhara. The attacks, described by the Amhara Regional Authority as an “invasion”, are a clear breach of the CoHA by the TPLF.

In this latest act of aggression against Amhara, the Abiy regime is accused of colluding with the TPLF; an organisation that despite having the terrorist label removed, remains a terrorist group through and through.

The Amhara regional government has called on the TPLF and its supporters to… “fully adhere to the Pretoria agreement and swiftly vacate from the areas it currently controls”, and is demanding all troops (TPLF and ENDF) be withdrawn from the Raya Alamata (occupied by TPLF forces during the 2020 -2022 war), Raya Bala, Ofla, Korem, and Zata areas.

According to the UN, over 50,000 civilians have been displaced as a result of the incursions. “The humanitarian situation is dire, with thousands…in need of broad humanitarian support to survive”. The majority of those forced from their homes are women, children/youth and elderly.

The African Union (AU) has called on both sides “to urgently halt hostilities….ensure the safety of civilians to end the renewed displacement of the local population”, “ and to fully implement the CoHA.

Despite the fact that much of the fighting during the 2020-2022 war took place within the Amhara region, the Amhara authority was excluded from the Pretoria talks, as a result the Amhara people feel betrayed by the Abiy government.

The details of the CoHA are widely known, what isn’t clear is what was agreed in private. In exchange for the TPLF agreeing to stop making trouble, did the government for example, commit to stand aside when TPLF forces marched into Amhara; and, did Abiy commit to disarm the Amhara Special Forces in order to remove any military obstacle to TPLF regional ambitions?

Speculation perhaps; what is not in doubt is Abiy’s duplicity, the depth of his political weakness and his reliance on extremist forces within Ethiopia; whether they be Tigray expansionists or Oromo nationalists.

The TPLF were in power for 28 years, Abiy Ahmed was a member of the ‘coalition’, through which they ruled. They are old friends then – Dictators in Arms we could say; partners in suppression and profiteering, with it seems a common enemy – the Amhara people.

Geographically the Amhara region is sandwiched between Oromia in the South-West, where the ethnic slaughter of Amhara people has been taking place, and TPLF thugs to the North keen to expand their kingdom, and politically Amhara politicians are being pushed to the fringes by the weight of Oromo extremists, Tigray tribal nationalists and an insipid duplicitous government led by a narcissist.

As the country hovers on the brink of another internal war, as millions wander homeless, displaced by fighting, and millions more live in utter destitution, Abiy is embellishing his genocidal reign by building a national palace (estimated $10 – $15 billion) – for himself, and luxury villas for his mates, and destroying cherished landmarks in the centre of Addis Ababa. It is sickening; he clearly cares not for the people or the country, is driven only by personal ambition and vanity and is not fit for political office of any kind.

Ethiopia is a diverse nation with dozens of ethnic groups, which for generations lived side by side in harmony. The internal conflicts taking place are not the result of community hatred and division, but flow from the hands of ambitious manipulative politicians, including Abiy and his Prosperity Party. Far from working for peace and social cohesion as they should be, the government are either perpetrating ethnic violence themselves, or due to political weakness and indifference to the suffering of Amhara civilians, are enabling the perpetrators.Facebook

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Graham Peebles

Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with acutely disadvantaged children and conducting teacher training programmes. Website: https://grahampeebles.org/