COVID-19 AND IT’S IMPACT ON BANGLADESH’S GARMENT WORKERS

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ready-made garment (RMG) sector was especially hard hit as consumer demand for apparel has plummeted, leading to global retailers cancelling orders and revising their sourcing strategies. My research project was a two- part study on improving the livelihoods of garment workers in global supply chains. Not only were workers at the bottom of supply chains most likely to bear the brunt of job losses and wage reductions during the crisis, but women were also the ones disproportionately affected, as they are the ones most likely to be employed in garment sector jobs. My research project used remote research methods to understand both the short-term effects of the pandemic on workers, as well as propose longer-term policy solutions to help mitigate hardship during future crises. This rapid research study developed outputs for immediate dissemination (policy briefs, blogs, and op-eds), as well as a longer report and academic articles by the end of 2020/ early 2021. The research findings were disseminated through press releases to the Western and Bangladeshi media interested in covering this issue, as well as via webinars where key points will be discussed with other experts in the field. 

The first part of this research was in collaboration with the James P Grant School of Public Health (BRAC JPGSPH) and the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED) at BRAC University in Bangladesh to conduct a rapid response survey of factory managers and garment workers in order to understand how they have been impacted during this pandemic. The second part of the research was in collaboration with the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) in London. With IHRB, we conducted qualitative research (in depth, semi-structured interviews) with eight to ten international retailers who source out of Bangladesh to understand how they reacted to the crisis and why. This research was supported in part by the Bangladesh office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Publications, Webinars, and Podcasts

Op-ed. “Beyond the Accord” The Daily Star

  • Report: The Weakest Link in the Supply Chain- How the Pandemic is Affecting Bangladesh’s Garment Workers.

  • Research Brief: The Impact of Covid-19 on the Lives of Workers in the Bangladesh Garment Industry

  • Op-ed. “Facade of workers’ safety beginning to show cracks during the pandemic.” The Daily Star

  • (With Salil Tripathi and Harpreet Kaur, 2021). “How the Pandemic has Impacted the Various Layers of the Global Garment Supply Chain,” in Covid-19 and Human Rights (Morten Kjaerum, Martha F. Davis, and Amanda Lyons, eds.),Oxon: Routledge/ Taylor and Francis Group. Featured in Book Authority’s Top 100 List.

    REVIEWS:

    • "This impressive book is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand the COVID-19 crisis from a human rights perspective. Through a comprehensive exploration of the impact of the coronavirus on diverse issues, the authors demonstrate why human rights are indeed an essential compass to guide our reactions and our policy to this unprecedented crisis."

      Kathryn Sikkink, Harvard University, USA

    • "The COVID-19 Pandemic constitutes one of the major contemporary human rights challenges to governments and the international community. The current volume provides compelling insights to how we will be better prepared for similar challenges in the future. Governments had to take far-reaching measures which drastically restricted the rights to personal liberty, to work, to freedom of movement, privacy, property, the right to education and freedom of assembly. In addition, governments had to protect the most vulnerable groups and ensure that the Pandemic did not increase existing social and economic inequalities. After one year of trial and error, we need to admit that neither governments nor the international human rights community were prepared. This book offers ideas and inspiration for how to reach a scientifically sound and balanced human rights-based approach."

      Manfred Nowak, Vienna University and Secretary General of the Global Campus of Human Rights, Austria

    • "The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked unprecedented restrictions to human rights even in democratic regimes and highlighted the obstacles to international cooperation. But it also underscored the crucial importance of protecting the right to health and other social rights to preserve human life and dignity as well as functioning economies and states. This timely book illuminates how pandemics can be fought from a human rights- based approach and what can be done to seize this opportunity to adopt transformative policies to overcome structural inequalities."

      Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa, Former President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia

    • "Amid a flood of scholarly work on the human rights dimensions of the pandemic, this book stands out. Although written as events continue to unfold, the volume is remarkable for the penetrating analyses by leading scholars, which both cover an array of human rights issues, and raise critical, enduring questions regarding gaps not just in compliance but also in normative frameworks. While illuminating the sweeping devastation and upending of progress that the pandemic has wrought, the volume also offers hope that human rights frameworks can and must play a central role in transforming our social and international orders in light of the stark truths this crisis has laid bare."

      Alicia Ely Yamin, Harvard Law School, USA

  • September 20, 2021. Podcast. “Meet the Authors: The Weakest Link in the Supply Chain- How the Pandemic is Affecting Bangladesh’s Garment Workers.” Asia Global Institute. 

Advocacy and Press Coverage