Joint Ethical Trading Initiative Bangladesh organized a gender learning webinar titled Learnings and Perspectives on Gender Sensitivity in Garment Factories in Bangladesh. The one and a half hours webinar was organized on August 23, 2022 with presence of 171 participants.
Joint Ethical Trading Initiative Bangladesh organized a gender learning webinar titled Learnings and Perspectives on Gender Sensitivity in Garment Factories in Bangladesh. The one and a half hours webinar was organized on August 23, 2022. The webinar was co-facilitated by Ethical Trade Norway, Ethical Trading Initiative UK and Ethical Trading Initiative Bangladesh.
In total 171 participants registered and joined this webinar representing RMG factories, brands, NGOs, The Danish Ministry of Defense Acquisition and Logistics Organization, workers federation, business school and multilateral organizations from different countries.
Objective of this webinar was to disseminate overview and learnings from the implementation of the gender sensitive workplace programme in Bangladesh, learn from brand’s perspectives and listen from participants on way forward with gender initiatives.
The Joint Ethical Trading Initiatives have been implementing programmes through support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ETI Bangladesh has been implementing a social dialogue programme focusing on strengthening women’s role in leadership and representation roles in garment factories. The aim of the programme is to create gender sensitive workplaces for healthy industrial relations, and in turn contribute to improved productivity and sustainable growth. The objectives of the programme is to empower female workers through increased knowledge and awareness, promote female representation in leadership positions, increase the capacities of the factories to institutionalize safeguarding mechanisms against gender-based violence and to create and empower Sexual Harassment Complaint Committees in the factories.
The programme, rolled out in 19 factories, was completed in the second quarter of 2022, and conducted the endline assessments to measure the results and impact of the programme. This webinar reflected on learnings, results and impacts from the endline assessment.
ETI Bangladesh team gave a presentation on the context of the gender aspects, principle, strategy and process of the programme. Also, programme reach and highlights from endline study in 19 factories were presented. As part of our endline survey, video interviews were conducted with worker representatives, SHCC members and factory management to learn from their opinion. To understand participants’ thought on important factors to promote gender sensitivity and who can play better role, two virtual polls were organized, where they could participate in the poll.
Two brand representatives shared their view regarding the programme along with learning and recommendation. ETI Bangladesh is working on incorporating the recommendations, suggestions from the webinar and learning from the programme in future interventions.
ETI Bangladesh is continuing to offer the Gender Sensitive Workplace Programme to interested factories and brands. To learn more about the programme and how factories can benefit from it, please contact ETI Bangladesh Country Manager at abilamin@etibd.org
