Bangladesh is home to 164 million people. It is the second-largest textile manufacturer after China. It has been one of the primary engines of the growth in nation-building. The textile industry earns around $35 billion a year from exports and has around 4 million employees. Major employers are women. The value of textiles in Bangladesh in 2011 was $14.6 billion and in 2019 was $33.1 billion. It has the cheapest labor globally; the average monthly salary for garment workers was only $70 to $100 per month per worker. Bangladesh is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. After the independence of Bangladesh, its policymakers decided to make Bangladesh a manufacturing hub for the world. That’s why they opened the economy to the world and made various types of policies to ease business.
The Dark Side of Bangladesh
Unplanned development, Cold Run Industries’ brick factories, and construction work have worsened the situation.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, child labor in Bangladesh increased.
The textile industry produces around 56 billion liters of contaminated water in a year.
In the last couple of years, dozens of free thinkers, secular activists, members of religious minorities, and others have been killed by “radical Islamic.” Bangladesh has an over-dependency on textile exports. If anything happens to this industry, the countries will collapse and face an economic crisis.