DHAKA: A Bangladeshi woman was shot dead on Wednesday during protests by garment workers after they rejected a government wage increase offer, with the victim’s husband blaming police.

“Police opened fire. She was shot in the head... She died in a car on the way to a hospital,” said Mohammad Jamal, the husband of 23-year-old sewing machine operator Anjuara Khatun, a mother of two.

Jamal said police had opened fire on around 400 workers calling for wage increase in the industrial city of Gazipur, outside the capital Dhaka. “Six to seven people were shot at and injured,” he said.

Bacchu Mia, a police inspector posted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital where the body was brought, confirmed the death but gave no further details.

Highway blocked, four cops injured in renewed wave of violence

Police said fresh violence broke out in Gazipur, home to hundreds of factories, after 4,000 people staged protests rejecting the wage decision. Thousands more blocked a highway where at least five officers were injured, two of them critically, a police inspector said.

Unions say workers have been hard hit by persistent inflation, which reached nearly 10 per cent in October. Police say 600 factories that make clothing for many major Western brands were shuttered last week and scores were ransacked in the biggest wage protest in a decade.

Four factories were torched with multiple deaths of workers amid the growing violence.

The South Asian country’s 3,500 garment factories account for around 85 per cent of its $55 billion in annual exports, supplying many of the world’s top brands including Levi’s, Zara and H&M. But conditions are dire for many of the sector’s four million workers, the vast majority of whom are women whose monthly pay starts at 8,300 taka ($75).

A government-appointed panel raised wages on Tuesday by 56.25 per cent, but striking workers demand a near-tripling to 23,000 taka.

The Netherlands-based Clean Clothes Campaign, a textile workers’ rights group, dismissed the new pay level as a “poverty wage”. “The new minimum wage condemns workers to a struggle for basic survival for the next five years,” it stated. Many brands sourcing their clothing from Bangladesh have long-standing living wage pledges, it said, but “they have failed to act, illustrating the emptiness of these commitments”.

Meanwhile, the US State Department condemned violence against workers in Bangladesh protesting over the minimum wage.

The minimum wage is fixed by a state-appointed board that includes representatives from the manufacturers, unions and wage experts. “The wage was low before, and it is still low after the new minimum wage announcement,” said Mujahid Ahmed, 23, a sewing machine operator. “It is not enough to meet our basic demands.”

Wage protests pose a major challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has ruled the country since 2009.

The UN rights chief Volker Turk has urged Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to release main opposition leader Khaleda Zia for urgent medical treatment outside the country.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2023