Duty Free Status Lost: US move shocks Bangladesh

A top labour rights activist Kalpona Akter says that the recent reforms were largely cosmetic.

DHAKA: A furious Bangladesh on Friday criticised a “shocking” decision by the United States to cut trade privileges after a deadly garment factory collapse, insisting it had taken concrete action to improve safety.

In his announcement that Bangladesh was losing its duty-free trade privileges, US President Barack Obama said the Dhaka government had failed to protect the fundamental rights of workers.

But Bangladeshi officials, desperate to persuade major Western fashion retailers to stay put, said it had enacted a series of reforms since the April 24 collapse of a factory complex in which 1,129 people were killed -- the latest in a series of disasters to blight the industry.

“It cannot be more shocking for the factory workers of Bangladesh that the decision ... comes at a time when the government of Bangladesh has taken concrete and visible measures to improve factory safety and protect workers’ rights,” a foreign ministry statement said.

A top labour rights activist Kalpona Akter, head of the Bangladesh Center of Worker Solidarity said Friday that the recent reforms were largely cosmetic.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2013.