Category Archives: Bangladesh

Anger at huge shareholder payout as US chain Kohl’s cancels $150m in orders

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Retailer paid $109m in dividends just weeks after cancelling clothing orders, leaving suppliers in Bangladesh facing financial crisis

Kohl’s, one of the US’s largest clothing retailers, cancelled millions of dollars worth of existing orders from Bangladeshi and Korean garment factories just weeks before paying out $109m (£85m) in dividends to shareholders, the Guardian can reveal.

The company cancelled orders of clothing worth approximately $100m from Korea and $50m from Bangaldeshi factories after the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and refused petitions from suppliers asking for the option to renegotiate payments. 

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‘These women aren’t victims’: director turns the spotlight on garment workers

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Based on true stories, Rubaiyat Hossain’s Made in Bangladesh challenges stereotypes while revealing the relentless pressure of fashion’s supply chain

Rubaiyat Hossain’s latest film, Made in Bangladesh, opens with a scene of pure, visceral panic: young garment workers trapped in a burning factory. Alarms blare, women scream and smoke fills the stairwells.

“A fire or a building collapse is every garment worker’s greatest fear,” says Hossain. When filming the scene, the women seen desperately running for their lives didn’t need much direction. 

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Fighting cyclones and coronavirus: how we evacuated millions during a pandemic

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Bangladesh has battled the twin perils of a super-cyclone and Covid-19. We can offer lessons for others facing similar dangers

There was no time to lose when Cyclone Amphan began forming over the Indian Ocean in May.

But shelters are not built with social distancing in mind in Bangladesh and the country faced a challenge: how to move 2.4 million people from the destructive path of the storm without delivering them into an even greater danger – Covid-19. 

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Lockdown in Dhaka: where social distancing is an illusion

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The Bangladeshi capital has had coronavirus restrictions since 26 March. Photographer Noor Alam, who lives in the city, has been documenting life in neighbourhoods where people can’t afford to stay at home

A deceptive calm has fallen over Dhaka. In this densely populated city of 21 million, the main roads are empty, the sounds of horns have disappeared and the polluted sky has cleared. But social distancing within our neighbourhoods is an illusion. We are all packed into the same bazaars and homes.

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From Kenya to Bangladesh mask-making has become a thriving cottage industry

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Charities, NGOs and garment factories are adapting to provide protective gear, generating income and keeping communities safe

From crowded informal settlements to conservation areas teeming with wildlife, cottage industries have popped up around the globe producing and distributing face masks for frontline workers, taxi drivers, market sellers and more. Usually comprised of two fabric layers with a disposable filter, mask-making enterprises are stoking local economies and helping communities.

In Bangladesh, where there have been over 25,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, shopping malls are once again open, and garment factories – which provide 84% of the country’s total exports – have resumed operations despite worker claims that mask-wearing and social distancing are not enforced.

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Super-cyclone Amphan kills up to 20 in India and Bangladesh

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Strong winds tore down electricity pylons, walls and buildings, with full scale of damage still being estimated

The most powerful cyclone to hit Bangladesh and eastern India in more than 20 years tore down homes, carried cars down flooded streets and claimed the lives of up to 20 people.

Authorities began surveying the damage Thursday after millions spent a sleepless night which saw 165km/h (102mph) winds carrying away trees, electricity pylons, walls and roofs, and transformer stations exploding.

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Bangladesh garment factories reopen despite coronavirus threat to workers

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In an effort to revive the stricken industry plant owners restart production, but labour activists claim safety measures are illusory

Workers in garment factories in Bangladesh, which have reopened despite a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, have said their lives are being put at risk as they are forced to return to work in cramped conditions where mask-wearing and physical distancing are not enforced.

Directives by the Bangladesh government stated that garment factories, which supply some of the biggest brands in the world and produce 84% of the country’s total exports, would be allowed to resume operations, but only if they maintain physical distancing and the ban on public transportation.

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Rohingya refugees arrive on ‘de facto detention island’ in Bangladesh

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Rights groups decry relocation of people picked up at sea after fleeing camps in Cox’s Bazar

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims, including children, have arrived on “a de facto detention island” in Bangladesh after being stranded at sea for weeks.

Rights groups had warned that the refugees, who had been turned away from other countries in the region, were at risk of starvation and abuse by traffickers. It is believed that other boats remain adrift.

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Bangladeshi journalist is jailed after mysterious 53-day disappearance

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Campaigners warn Shafiqul Islam Kajol faces a lengthy sentence as his family worries about his exposure to Covid-19 in prison

Fifty-three days after he disappeared, Bangladeshi journalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol turned up on Sunday in police custody at a border town 150 miles from where he had last been seen.

“I am alive,” he told his son by phone, the first time the family had heard his voice since his disappearance in early March, a day after a case was filed against him and 31 others under the country’s controversial new Digital Security Act.

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Rohingya refugees sent to remote Bangladeshi island after weeks at sea

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Hundreds more refugees still stranded on boats after being turned away by Malaysia

Rohingya refugees believed to have spent weeks stranded on cramped boats at sea have been sent to a remote, uninhabited island by Bangladesh, while hundreds more remain adrift.

Dozens of Rohingya landed on the coast of southern Bangladesh on Saturday, an official said, with some sent to Bhasan Char, a silt island in the estuary of Bangladesh’s Meghna river.

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‘Let the boats in’: Rohingya refugees plead for stranded relatives to be saved

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Two boats still stranded at sea as Malaysia accused of using Covid-19 as an excuse to turn them back

Rohingya refugees whose relatives, including children, have been stranded for weeks on cramped boats have urged international governments to act before they perish at sea.

Two boats carrying around 500 people were last spotted off Bangladesh about a week ago, but are believed to have returned to the high seas. The refugees on board, who were fleeing desperate conditions in camps in Bangladesh, had attempted to reach Malaysia but appear to have been turned away. Bangladesh has also said it will not allow the boats to dock.

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Bangladesh urged to open ports to allow in Rohingya refugee boats

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More than 500 stranded on trawlers in what UN calls ‘human tragedy of terrible proportions’

The Bangladeshi government has been urged to open its ports and allow two boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya refugees to come ashore so they can be given urgent medical care, food and water.

It is believed more than 500 people, including children, are onboard the stranded trawlers, which were recently seen in the Bay of Bengal but have reportedly returned to the high seas.

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Bangladesh rescues hundreds of Rohingya drifting at sea for nearly two months

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About 400 were on board, and more than 30 had died during perilous attempt to reach Malaysia

Bangladesh’s coastguard says it has rescued at least 382 “starving” Rohingya refugees floating in a large boat in the country’s territorial waters after nearly two months at sea.

Acting on a tip-off, a patrol launched a three-day search for the boat, locating it on Wednesday night off its south-eastern coast, spokesman Lieutenant Shah Zia Rahman said.

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Arcadia Group cancels ‘over £100m’ of orders as garment industry faces ruin

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As owner of brands including Topshop and Dorothy Perkins cancels unshipped orders, thousands will be left without income, warn rights groups

The Arcadia Group, which owns brands including Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, is estimated to have cancelled in excess of £100m of existing clothing orders worldwide from suppliers in some of the world’s poorest countries as the global garment sector faces ruin.

According to data from the Bangladesh Garments and Manufacturing Association (BGMEA), the Arcadia Group has cancelled £9m of orders in Bangladesh alone.

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Killer of Bangladesh independence leader arrested after 45 years on run

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Ex-military captain one of dozens sentenced to death for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder

Police in Bangladesh have arrested a fugitive killer of the country’s independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, nearly 45 years after the brutal assassination, the country’s home minister has said.

Abdul Majed, a former military captain, was arrested in the capital, Dhaka, Asaduzzaman Khan said, adding that the arrest was “the biggest gift” for Bangladesh this year.

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Primark announces wage fund for garment workers

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Pledge comes in response to claims that order cancellations to minimise Covid-19 losses have hurt millions of workers in the developing world

Primark, one of the UK’s most popular retailers, has announced it will create a fund to help pay the wages of the millions of garment workers affected by its decision to cancel tens of millions of pounds worth of clothing orders from factories in developing countries across the world.

The pledge followed sustained criticism of the fashion retailer after data from the Bangladeshi and Garment Exporters Association (BGMEA) revealed it had cancelled all orders already placed with suppliers.

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Bangladesh sends food aid to sex workers as industry goes into lockdown

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Up to 100,000 women could be left unable to support families as brothels are closed amid fears of Covid-19 outbreak

The government of Bangladesh has started sending emergency food and aid to the tens of thousands of women working in the country’s commercial sex industry as brothels across the country close.

To try to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the authorities have ordered the lockdown of the sex industry, closing the country’s biggest brothel in Goalanda in the Rajbari District of Dhaka until 5 April along with many others across the country.

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Primark among retailers cancelling £2.4bn orders in ‘catastrophic’ move for Bangladesh

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Coronavirus cutbacks amount to a ‘wholesale abandonment’ of garment workers, says labour rights group

More than a million Bangaldeshi garment workers have been sent home without pay or have lost their jobs after western clothing brands cancelled or suspended £2.4bn of existing orders in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic, according to data from the Bangladeshi and Garment Exporters Association (BGMEA).

Primark and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill are among retailers that have collectively cancelled £1.4bn and suspended an additional £1bn of orders as they scramble to minimise losses. This includes nearly £1.3bn of orders that were already in production or had been completed, according to BGMEA.

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Coronavirus: the week the world shut down

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Walls have been raised and societies quarantined as people enter a new reality

It should not have come as a surprise. Life had already been upended in China. Iran and Italy have been reeling for a month. And yet it still felt sudden, this week, when walls were raised across the world, entire societies were quarantined and billions of people realised they had crossed a dividing line: from life before coronavirus to after.

After weeks of governments prevaricating over whether to ban mass gatherings, close businesses or seal borders, restrictions came in a flurry. “We are at war,” announced the French president, Emmanuel Macron. But without adequate weapons to fight the virus, let alone enough hospital beds or ventilators, this was the week the world beat a tactical retreat.

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