DHAKA: Bangladesh and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will launch a $24m safety campaign yesterday in the latest effort to overhaul appalling conditions at the nation’s clothing factories, officials said.
Experts will conduct safety inspections at more than 1,000 factories as part of the multi-year campaign, after a garment factory collapse in April that killed 1,132 people highlighted inadequate safety standards in the industry.
The campaign will target factories that operate as sub-contractors or produce garments for lesser-known Western retailers, and have not signed up to safety accords established since the disaster.
“We want to bring the number of industrial accidents to a tolerable limit,” Labour and Employment Secretary Mikail Shipar said. “There will be zero tolerance to poor working conditions in our factories.”
The collapse of the Rana Plaza building, where workers toiled for long hours and poor pay to make clothes for Western retailers, focused attention like never before on factory conditions in Bangladesh, the world’s second largest garment producer.
A fire at the Tazreen garment factory in Dhaka killed 111 workers last November, the country’s worst such tragedy, and revealed unauthorised sub-contracting of orders from Western groups.
Many EU retailers have signed up to a new safety accord since the April disaster, pledging improved conditions at factories, while US retailers have launched a separate pact.
The ILO and the Bangladesh government will sign an agreement later yesterday for the $24m inspection campaign to be funded jointly by the Dutch, British and Canadian governments, Shipar said. He added that the campaign would target about half of Bangladesh’s 4,500 factories, while the ILO said some 1,200 plants would be scrutinised.
AFP
