How effective are the Anti-Harassment Committees in our RMG sector?

It is common knowledge that the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the country is mostly run by female workers. Even after significantly contributing to the economy, these workers' safety and security are not always taken into consideration. 

They are often victims of Gender-based violence (GBV) in their own workplace and the Anti-Harassment Committees (AHC) in their factories fail to take sufficient measures. 

The High Court (HC) issued a directive in 2009 that asked for active anti-sexual harassment cells in all educational institutions and workplaces. According to data provided on the BGMEA website, till date, their monitors visited 1,394 factories and found harassment committees in 577 of them. 

The reality is many factories do not have any committee and sometimes, the factory management gets directly involved to deal with the offence even if there is a committee.   

In a recent report titled 'Effectiveness of Role Played by Complaint Committee to Protect Sexual Harassment at Workplace' by Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), it was revealed that the AHC in the garment industry do not submit their annual reports to the government and the committee members are not sufficiently trained to handle the cases. 

Additionally, there is a gap in information or data on how many cases were reported or resolved by the AHC. This lack of data inevitably hinders policymaking.  

This year in August, a study conducted by nine RMG workers' organisations with the support of Solidarity Centre, revealed that RMG workers faced five forms of gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) including sexual violence and psychological harassment in their workplaces. 

Of the 140 male and female participants, 45% experienced sexual violence and harassment, 22% psychological harassment, 17% verbal abuse, 9% economic exploitation and 7%  physical violence. 

According to a 2019 research by ActionAid, 80% of garment workers in Bangladesh have seen or directly experienced sexual violence or harassment in the workplace. The study involved 200 garment workers of whom 181 were women. 

The Business Standard spoke to the researcher involved with the study: Mostafiz Ahmed, Associate Professor of the Social Work Department at Jagannath University. 

He detailed the focus of the study and the need for functionality and monitoring in the existing Anti-Harassment Committees in the RMG sector. All eight factory managers interviewed for the study said that the committees were formed because buyers asked for them.   

"Our study objective was not exploring GBV or harassment. Our focus was on how the committees could be made active and how they conducted their activities. The study does not focus on the nature of violence and harassment," he explained.  

"Although these are popularly known as Anti-Harassment Committees, the HC verdict in 2009 called them Complaint Committee (Obhijog Committee). There is not much detail in our existing labour law on how to address GBV in the workplace. 

When there is not a clear law on anything, then what happens normally in Bangladesh is that whatever directives the High Court gives, that becomes considered as the law," he said.

According to the study, the committee members are often not capable of handling harassment cases.

Mostafiz said that the HC clearly stated the committee should be headed by women, have at least five members and two of the external members should be from outside the factory or the workplace. The external members should be from organisations that work on gender or sexual abuse.

"What we saw was that in many cases, workers from the factory are included in the committee and they are not well-trained. You see, the definition of sexual harassment is wide, the HC verdict stated 12 to 14 different types of harassment," he said, adding, "The definition of harassment has changed and not only [a] direct touch or something similar, [but] something like making a comment or sending a picture can also be termed as harassment.

We do not know how aware these workers [in the committees] are of these things."

When harassment is reported, according to HC, an investigation has to be started and the investigation process has to be maintained with confidentiality. "We wanted to say that these workers may not have enough training [to handle these issues]."

On factory management trying to solve the matter by themselves and not involving the committee, the researcher said that when they asked the factory management for some cases that the committees have resolved so they could be presented as good practice in the study, "they instantly said yes, there is that case, there is that other case, etc. However, after a while, they said that these were not resolved through the committee, the management resolved them."

Thus, "we said that the committees need to be made functional. The [complaint] should go through the committee, who will then recommend something and the factory management can then implement it."

Mostafiz said that they tried to maintain diversity in their study so they could create a more complete picture of the situation. They included factories with and without trade unions, those working in the knit or woven sector, those with and without foreign investment etc. Factories also had different locations including Mirpur, Ashulia, Narayanganj, etc.

"Another issue we detected was intention [or its lack thereof]. All factory management told us they formed the committees because buyers demanded it. The HC verdict was in 2009 but some of the committees were formed in 2018, 2021 etc. The motivating factor [behind creating the committees] was the buyers' request."

Mostafiz suggested that these committees need strong monitoring from regulatory bodies like DIFE (Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments). "Sometimes CSOs [Civil Society Organisations] have an involvement with the formation of these committees. But they can only help under projects etc, once the project duration ends, the committees no longer function properly. Employers' association as well DIFE should monitor these committees."

He further added, "DIFE said there are 2,150 committees across the country but they have not segregated [distinguished] how many of them are in the RMG sector. They should include this information in their annual reports." 

The researcher also emphasised the need for more social dialogues to raise awareness.