BWA Street Childrens Party 2011

Fragen an K. Smith (verantwortlich):

• P. Greve:

  Dear K. Smith, your project sounds like a wonderful idea! However, there's one…

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  P. Greve fragte vor etwa 2 Jahren

  Dear K. Smith,
  
  your project sounds like a wonderful idea! However, there's one thing I stumbled upon reading this page: I know that T-Shirts come very cheap in Bangladesh, but still: 1 Euro is so cheap, I start wondering how (and by whom!) it is produced. Can you be sure that the T-Shirts you buy from money donated here were not made by children?

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  K. Smith: (Projektverantwortliche) antwortete vor etwa 2 Jahren

  Hi Mr. Greve,
  
  Thanks for your question – it’s great to see people interested in what we are doing.
  
  The short answer is – this is a very personal event. All the sponsors have been recruited through personal connections with the organising committee, so it is very easy to know where the supplies for the party are coming from.
  
  Longer answer is: the actual cost of a children’s T-shirt in Dhaka, if you go down to the market just near my house (no frills, packaging, etc, just a stall), is around Tk. 120-150 (1.22 – 1.52 EUR at today’s exchange rate). We will buy the T-shirts directly from a factory, buy in bulk, and are expecting to be able to negotiate a reduced rate, as it is for a charity event, hence asking for only 1 EUR / shirt on Betterplace.
  
  The child labour issue in Bangladesh is a very difficult one. Despite ratifying a number of ILO Conventions related to child labour, the Government here has resisted a universal ban on child labour because it would be criminalising an activity on which a huge number of families in Bangladesh rely - working children in Bangladesh contribute on average around 25% of the family income - a very significant amount. Instead, government and other agencies here have focused on eradicating hazardous forms of child labour. One of the effects of the National Child Labour Eradication Policy has been the documentation and classification of different types of labour involving children. In effect, what this means is that child labour will permitted (at least for the time being) within certain limits e.g. young people of a certain age can work, but only for a restricted number of hours per week and in certain positions deemed ‘non-hazardous’. Policy making and implementation is a s-l-o-w process here, though, so it remains to be seen what the true effect of these efforts will be.
  
  Actually I was surprised when I arrived in Bangladesh in 2009 how organised the RMG sector workers are (I have no background in the industry, and it was the first time I had come across it really). The RMG sector in Bangladesh is huge – the biggest forex earning industry in the country, employing many thousands of people (I believe it’s around 1.5 million female workers alone). Despite the many criticisms thrown at it, it can not be denied that it has had a huge positive impact for Bangladesh too. Most notably, for me, is that it has given women the opportunity of earning their own money and becoming financially independent. This, in a country where the status of women, particularly in rural areas is undermined in almost every area of life that you can think of. The sector is unionized, and combined pressure from unions and international pressure from buyers has seen steady increases in the minimum wage for garment workers. Unfortunately gains in Occupational Health & Safety have been less uniform and the conditions in the factories vary hugely - and that goes for the use of child labourers too. Most well known international companies actually have done pretty well to improve conditions drastically in the factories they buy from (with spot checks, blacklisting etc) but of course there are many less well known names that do not have the pressure of Western public scrutiny to force them into action.
  
  Hope this background info and the short answer above is useful. Thanks again for your interest,
  
  Katrina