Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) is a leading alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers’ rights around the globe. In FY22, the Bangladesh RMG sector contributed 9.25% to GDP. Bangladesh’s overall RMG export earnings stood at USD 42613.15 million. In sectoral shares of export earnings RMG has contributed 81.82% of all exports. Total export earnings in FY22 were 52082.66 million USD. As of 2022, the RMG sector employs nearly 4.2 million workers, and it is a major formal employment sector in Bangladesh. 1 According to the recent research “Where are the Women: A study on the Declining Number of Women Workers in Bangladesh RMG Industry” (2022) by BRAC, GiZ and ETI Bangladesh; despite the declining trend of women in the RMG industry, still the proportion of women workers is 53.65% and male is 46.35%. With funding from NORAD and the ministry of foreign affairs of Dutch Government, and JETI (an alliance of ETI UK, Norway and Bangladesh) has conducted gender sensitive workplace programme in 19 factories from 2021-2022.
