One more garment employee dies

The death of yet another woman garment worker raises once again all the old questions about the safety of women working in such a vital sector as the readymade garments sector. Through her mysterious death, the 19-year old Beauty Akhter makes us pause once more to ask if those engaged in the garments business are fully qualified or trained in the job of ensuring that those who work for them feel secure in their jobs and about their physical security. No one is yet sure how the young woman died, though there is the huge suspicion that dark play was involved in her death. She was allegedly pushed from the top of the building housing the factory she worked for, after an altercation with another worker followed by a visit to the production manager's office.
Our sadness regarding Beauty Akhter's death takes a broader perspective. Briefly, it is young women like her, driven as they are by grinding poverty, who make their way to the garments factories in search of rather low-paid jobs that are somehow a means for their survival as well as for their poverty-stricken families. In a very large number of instances, these women are self-sustaining and, beyond that, happen to be sole earning members for their families. And so when they are subjected to bad or exploitative treatment and when some of them are even pushed to their deaths, entire families are once more threatened with a return to poverty. The bigger issue here is why such realities as the death of garment workers in their workplaces take place at all, especially when it is understood and expected that the rules pertaining to employment will be followed by the management of industries. In the past many years, for all our happiness at the development and expansion of the garments sector, we have repeatedly had to deal with such vexing matters as the workplace treatment of workers, especially female ones, the sexual and other forms of harassment they often prey to and the like. Questions have abounded about such trivial matters as provisions of emergency exits in case of accidents.
We believe it is time for everyone, the government in particular, to take a serious look into the conditions of garments workers, especially women, in the light of the tragic death of Beauty Akhter. The allegations that have arisen about her death must be thoroughly inquired into and everyone involved must face the law. The authorities must see to it that attempts are not made to pass off the death as a suicide. In the long term, but not too long, proper and well-meaning steps must be in place to ensure that at least minimally congenial working conditions are there for garments workers. That also entails a management that must be educated and trained in the task of guaranteeing workers' welfare.
Meanwhile, we will expect that law and order will be maintained in the garments industry and that nothing will be done to damage a sector that has already taken a number of bad blows.