Spare a thought for the children of female RMG workers
The kind of emotional agony and pain garment working mothers have to go through as a result of forced separation from their children raises broader questions about whether the employment opportunity is worth such terrible pain
Globalisation, export-oriented industrialisation and the associated international trade can substantially improve economic outcomes for women, by increasing employment and wages, and creating better jobs. Engagement of women in such enterprises is believed to enhance their welfare, improve their network and connectivity, and empower them.
Mass employment of women in export-oriented industries has led to significant gender equality gains. Although paid employment in the RMG sector of Bangladesh has delivered some empowerment opportunities, mostly centred on economic parameters, the overall change is far from being positively transformative for the women workers living as migrants in urban and peri-urban spaces of Dhaka.
Bangladesh is now the second largest clothing producer in the world after China. The RMG sector is the country's largest exporter, accounting for 85% of all exports, according to the report of Oxfam Australia, 2019.
In 2022, women comprised around 61% of the industry's 3.5 million workers. Ninety percent of RMG workers cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families, forcing them to skip meals, eat inadequately or go into debt regularly. Many other studies have shown that garment workers work and live in challenging conditions, often working six days a week for 10-16 hours a day.
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The Oxfam Australia 2019 report points out that 72% of Bangladesh's garment workers interviewed cannot afford medical treatment when sick or injured. In addition, 76% of these workers have no running water inside their homes, while one in three workers interviewed were separated from their children, 80% of them due to inadequate incomes. Also, they cannot access childcare facilities within their residence or workplace in urban and peri-urban Dhaka.
Commonly, in Bangladeshi culture, a mother is responsible for childcare. If the mother cannot spare time for the childcare provision, the other option the mother is left with is to put the childcare responsibility under the secondary caregivers like grandmother or female relatives.
However, their financial inadequacy does not allow them to accompany additional members as caregivers by renting a double-room house. So they are often forced to send their child back to their villages.
Whatever the reason for separation, living apart from a child can be devastatingly painful for anyone. The pain is particularly severe for mothers. In turn, such a forced decision to send the child back to the villages and live apart for a long time results in innate guilt and emotional trauma for the garment-working mothers, making their lives hell.
As a consequence of their guilt and trauma, they cannot even sleep or eat properly, and all the time, they feel worried about their child's wellbeing. Consequently, such a traumatic life negatively affects their productive skill at the workplace as well.
The kind of emotional agony and pain they, the garment working mothers, have to go through raises broader questions on how vindicated is their employment as garment workers and whether the employment opportunity is worth such terrible pain.
Their marginal gains and delights through garment employment turn to ashes in their child's absence. Therefore, it is worth exploring the challenges and opportunities for garment-working mothers to balance their productive and reproductive responsibilities in light of their psycho-social frailties resulting from insufficient childcare provision in urban settings.
The other side of the story involves the cognitive and moral development of a child raised without motherly love and affection. The upbringing of a garment-working mother's child without motherly warmth and care results in a severe lack of intellectual and ethical development of the child, often turning them into unproductive human resources. In the long run, this bears serious implications for the life aspirations of these children in the form of being addicted to prohibited drugs and getting involved in antisocial affairs.
This raises concerns about a generation being exploited in daylight and lost forever. Hence, it is high time to gain qualitative insights into the realities of their life, to bring them back on track in a familial lifecycle with a proper motherly upbringing.
Md Sahed Khan is a gender specialist working at different institutes as a consultant in Bangladesh.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
