Socio –Economic and Sexual Securities of Young Women Working in Garment Industries: A Case Study of Bangladesh

Socially and economically, Bangladesh is passing through a transitional phase. Increasing number of women is working outside their home. In Dhaka alone about a million young women are working in garment industries which often demands working till late hours in night. The present paper examines how far these garment workers (GW) are safe and free from emotional and sexual harassments while working or commuting to their workplace. Using ILO frame work of eight essential securities, the paper further explores how far these securities are available to the garment workers. The paper is based both on survey of 726 GW and 30 in depth interviews collected from young women working in garment industries of Dhaka. Findings indicate that most of women face harassments, both while commuting to work place and at their job. Common harassments during commuting were touching or pinching of body, passing indecent remarks, proposing for sex and threatening if not oblige them or keep silent. At place of work also, similar harassments by the male supervisors and employers were reported, though less frequent. Cooping mechanism includes commuting in group, neglecting or being non-responsive and in some cases even obliging to their demand. Many workers reported in being constant fear. Some of them drop out from the job or request only day shift limiting there opportunity to earn more. The results against ILO defined essential security is also far from satisfactory showing very limed job security , opportunity to growth, opportunities to learn new skills and indeed physical safety/security.