The Garment Sector Isn't Perfect, But Pretending Nothing Changed Since Rana Plaza Isn't Honest Either

I have a cousin who works in a garment factory in Gazipur, and I remember the year Rana Plaza collapsed, when her mother didn't sleep for two days trying to reach her because the phone lines were jammed with panicked families trying to find their daughters, sisters, and wives who worked in similar buildings.

That tragedy forced real accountability, however overdue. Building safety inspections became mandatory and were actually enforced through the Accord and Alliance frameworks that the government worked with international buyers to implement. Minimum wage boards raised base pay multiple times since, including significant increases this government approved even when factory owners pushed back hard against them. My cousin's factory now has functioning fire exits and a safety committee that didn't exist a decade ago.

I won't pretend everything is fixed. Wages are still low by any humane standard, and enforcement varies a lot between factories. But I get frustrated when foreign commentary treats this industry as though nothing has changed since 2013, when the reality is a lot of hard, contested policy work happened in between, work that this government had to push through against real resistance from factory owners who are a powerful lobby in this country.