ETI Bangladesh echoed “#NoExcuse: UNiTE to End Violence Against Women” through different activities
This 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an annual global campaign spanning from the 25th of November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to International Human Rights Day on December 10th.
Like previous years, Ethical Trading Bangladesh (ETI Bangladesh) took up a number of activities at different levels engaging its intervention factories, brands, labour rights organizations, trade union federations, international organizations, multi-stakeholder initiatives as well as government entities on this occasion. With the theme #NoExcuse: UNiTE to End Violence Against Women, this campaign raises awareness about these challenges, encourages advocacy to mitigate those, and push to create an empathetic and gender-sensitive workplace, that fosters a sense of solidarity without boundaries.
Though several stakeholders are working on combating GBV in the RMG industry, a complete gender sensitive workplace is yet to be achieved. So, the female workers are still vulnerable to various forms of violence including sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse in the workplace. Reducing gender-based violence against women was never an individual task. It requires holistic approach.
The Issue of GBV directly links to one of ETI Bangladesh strategic goals – “contribute to increased Gender Sensitivity and Female Empowerment in the supply chain by lobbying and advocating for policy changes, increasing awareness and capacitating key actors on the supplier level and nationally”.
Significantly, this celebration with all the like-minded organisations and activists has been illuminated due to the declaration made by the relevant officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment regarding their consideration of the ratification of C190.
ETI Activities in 2024 Campaign
Campaign preparatory webinar
To help the factories preparing for the celebration, ETI Bangladesh and Fair Wear Foundation jointly hosted a webinar on 13 November 2024 with 236 participants from 99 RMG factories, marking a significant collaboration for this year’s movement. In this event participants shared their lessons learned from previous years’ celebration as well as challenges and ways to overcome those while organising all these events in their workplaces. They also shared their plan of action for this year. ETI and Fair Wear Foundation also shared their ideas and plans for this years’ celebration.
Workplace capacity enhancement for combating GBV
ETI organized two one-day-long in-person refresher training workshops for Sexual Harassment Complaint Committees (SHCC). A total of 119 participants from 47 RMG factories, (93 women and 26 men) participated in the events held on 24 and 25 November 2024 in Dhaka.
These events aimed at strengthening SHCC members’ understanding of their roles in addressing GBV as well as enhancing their capacity to play the expected role. Discussions focused on the UN’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, GBV-related workplace challenges, and mechanisms for proactive measures and grievance-handling actions.
At the last leg of the events, the factories come up with a 12-month action plan per factory to combat GBV where they determined initiatives to raise awareness during this year’s campaign, further reinforcing workplace safety and gender equity.
Multi-stakeholder dialogue
Part of the collaborative advocacy and networking initiative, a multi-stakeholder dialogue on combating gender-based violence in the RMG industry was organised jointly with Reimagining Industry to Support Equality (RISE), and Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) on 3 December 2024.
A total of 68 representatives from trade unions, factories, civil society organizations, brands, and government officials was present there.
AHM Shafiquzzaman, the Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment was the Chief Guest in the event. He informed that Bangladesh is actively considering to ratify ILO C- 190: Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190), and it will hopefully be ratified by March 2025, said. He also informed that the amendment of Bangladesh Labour Act will be completed soon.
Ratification of ILO C-190 will be a landmark event in combating GBV, which the rights group are advocating for since long.
Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, Chief of the Labour Reform Commission and Executive Director, BILS delivered welcome address in the event. He emphasized on the role of each and every stakeholder as well as collaborative actions to address workplace violence and ensure dignity for workers.
The panel members included - Roksana Bilkis Lucky, GM - HR & Compliance, Aman-Unifill Group; China Rahman, Women Secretary, IndustriAll Bangladesh Council; General Secretary, Federation of Garment Workers; Md. Matiur Rahaman, Joint Inspector General, Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, Ministry of Labour and Employment; Tanjila Akter, Social Program Expert, Sustainability Social Program, H&M.Smita Nimilita from RISE presented on the global context of GBV and RISE’s social norms analysis findings, while Abil Bin Amin, Country Manager of ETI Bangladesh, called for collective efforts across all levels of the supply chain to improve worker conditions
Workplace level activities
ETI Bangladesh provided support 120 factories to organize events and spread messages against GBV reaching around a workforce of 175,000 workers. ETI Bangladesh published a poster with messages to end violence against women. The poster was distributed among the factories along with ETI Bangladesh audio songs and video docu-drama with the message and a message dossier that was announced through the public announcement system in the factory floors.
These factories celebrated this campaign festively. Factory owners, management representatives, various workplace committee members including Participation Committee (PC), Sexual Harassment Complaint Committee, and general workers came together.
The festivities in the factories included – discussion meetings with management and different committee members, rallies at factory premises with participation from workers and management, public announcements for the general workers based on the information dossier shared by ETI, human chain within the factory premises and exchanging flowers etc. Some of the factories developed promotional materials - namely caps, T-shirts, badges, etc and distributed among workers.
IEC/ BCC materials and communication activities
3500 copies of the poster published by ETI was distributed among 120 factories, 18 federation/ trade unions organizations under Industry All Bangladesh (IBC). The poster was displayed by the recipient reaching a big audience.
Also, team ETI developed needful guidelines for the factory-level organizers who participated in the preparatory online webinar.
ETI Bangladesh used its LinkedIn page and website for communicating the messages to a broader audience.
Participation in other events
To join ETI’s voice with other like-minded organizations, ETI Bangladesh also participated in several events and highlighted the message against GBV. This, notably, includes a press conference organized by Gender Platform, of which ETI Bangladesh is a member, that raised a comprehensive set of demands for mass dissemination.
The demands include ratification of ILO Convention 190, enactment of the Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention and Protection Act, Implementation of the High Court's 2009 Directives, and Formation of a Government Monitoring Committee.
Follow-up plan
To ensure quality implementation and provide need-based support, ETI Bangladesh will follow up factory-wise 12-month plans on a regular basis. The major mechanism is the quarterly SHCC learning sharing network meeting. It is expected that in every quarterly meeting, respective SHCC committee representatives will be sharing updates and best practices with other members of the network and ETI. ------------------
- Sunjida Khatoon Shashee, Senior Programme Officer - Gender, ETI Bangladesh
- Mahbuba Akbar, Programme Officer - Communication and Documentation, ETI Bangladesh
- Khaleda Akhter, Senior Programme Officer – Workplace Programme, ETI Bangladesh
