Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine Magazine May 2018 | Page 40

BANGLADESH CANVAS APPAREL RESOURCES NEWSLETTERS FACEBOOK FRIENDS To subscribe, send us an email at [email protected] Join more than 10,000 people who are already fans of Apparel Resources on facebook. Search for Apparel Resources at https://www.facebook.com/apparelresources/ BGMEA HQ gets 1 more year reprieve from demolition Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA) recently secured a one-year extension, for the last time (as it is being said in media reports), to demolish their central office building in Dhaka after giving an undertaking. The Supreme Court allowed the extension, pushing ahead the demolition date to April 12 next year, after completing the hearing of BGMEA’s time plea on April 2, 2018. Meanwhile, during the hearing, BGMEA handed over an undertaking to the apex court promising that it would not seek further extension of time for demolishing the office building, located on Begunbari Canal and Hatirjheel Lake in Dhaka. Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hussain-led four-member Appellate Division bench of the Supreme Court passed the order in response to the time plea moved by BGMEA earlier. In April 2011, Bangladesh’s High Court ruled that BGMEA’s building was built on land acquired through forged papers and was land-filled illegally. Back then, it gave three months’ time to bring down the complex. However, nothing much was done in this regard before the Supreme Court intervened on June 2016, upholding the demolition order of the 15-storey building as ordered by the High Court. On multiple occasions, the date for demolition was repeatedly deferred thereby annoying the Supreme Court which expressed severe discontent when BGMEA approached the court a few days ago, ahead of the scheduled April 12 demolition order, for yet another time extension. On March 27 this year, during the hearing on BGMEA’s time plea, the apex court demanded that the apparel manufacturers file an undertaking, swearing that they would not seek further extension for demolition. Law to safeguard female workers proposed A gender-based platform has pitched for the formation of a law to protect women from sexual harassment at garment factories in Bangladesh. Speakers at a round-table titled ‘Draft Act on Prevention and Protection Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace and Educational Institutions 2018’, organized in Dhaka recently, said that the society is witnessing incidents of sexual harassments every day. Catelene Passchier, President of Workers’ Group of International Labour Organization (ILO), placed a question for consideration of all – that whether a law is needed to protect women from sexual harassment at workplaces and educational institutions, adding, “If you want, the responsibility to make this law a reality comes upon all of us.” Alexandar Constam, Executive Director of Fair Wear Foundation, said the proposed law needs attention of all stakeholders including factory owners, garment workers, lawyers and journalists. “We want these incidents of sexual harassments to stop,” he stressed. Koon Wusterom, Country Manager for Fair Wear Foundation and Bablu Rahman, Country Representative of Fair Wear were also present at the programme to deliberate on the importance of the law. It is pertinent to mention here that a report published earlier in March revealed some startling information that most of the workers in Bangladesh’s garment sector are being sexually harassed every day. Such incidents of harassment have 40 Apparel Online Bangladesh | MAY 2018 | www.apparelresources.com grown so deep into the roots of the management system that ‘the workers have become used to it’. A previous report on the prevalence of gender-based violence in the garment supply chain, published back in December last year, stated that about three-quarter of women garment workers in Bangladesh have said that they experience verbal abuse while 20 per cent reported of being physically abused.