A central database of garment workers is yet to be prepared, almost five years after Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association took the initiative.Some garment makers say the total number of garment workers in Bangladesh is 4.4 million, while others say it is 3.5 million. The same confusion is there on the number of factories, which could either be 5,500 or 4,000, according to industry insiders.Often, factory owners publish incorrect information on workers, making it tougher to verify the identification of the victims in case of an accident.With the view to putting the confusions at bay, the garment makers’ trade body took up the project in 2012 only to put it on hold two or three years later.Were the database in place, some outstanding issues like finding out the actual addresses of the missing workers of Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza disasters and compensation payment to the victims of the twin industrial accidents would not have dragged on.The authorities of the two factories had to deal with several claimants demanding compensation for the same dead worker.As there was no database, many workers of Tazreen and Rana Plaza could not be properly identified and were later buried in mass graves. “Now we have restarted the process of making the central database of the garment workers,” said BGMEA President Siddiqur Rahman.“I hope the process will be completed very soon as we have put pressure on the member factories to provide information about their workers without further delay.”Initially, the database was supposed to be of workers of factories located in areas where the garment industries are dense.About 60 percent of the country’s garment factories are located in Mirpur, Ashulia, Gazipur, Savar, Maona and Narayanganj.Rahman now said the database will encompass garment workers from all over the country.The initiative is being carried out by the BGMEA’s own funding, he added.In another initiative, the government has already made a separate database of factories as per the Obama government’s 16-point action plan to win back trade benefits from the US.The workers are not included in this publicly accessible database.
