Bangladesh still remains among the 10 worst countries for laboutr rights in 2024, for the eighth consecutive year since 2017 as the country failed to improve its labour rights situation, said the 2024 ITUC Global Rights Index published on Wednesday.
The nine other worst countries for working people are Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Guatemala, Myanmar, the Philippines, Tunisia and Türkiye.
The report said that it was a comprehensive review of workers’ rights in law, ranking 151 countries against 97 indicators derived from ILO Conventions and jurisprudence, making it the only database of its kind.
Countries are rated on a scale from 1 to 5+ based on their respect for workers’ rights, with violations recorded annually from April to March, the report.
In the report, Bangladesh’s rating was 5 that indicated no guarantee of rights for the workers in the country.
The index prepared by the International Trade Union Confederation said that for years, Bangladeshi workers have been facing severe state repression, including violent crackdowns on peaceful protests by the industrial police and intimidation to prevent the formation of unions.
In 2023, several workers in the dominant garment sector were killed by police during protests, and a union leader was murdered, the index said.
It mentioned that workers’ strikes were met with police brutality, and attempts to form unions for the sector’s 4.5 million workers were obstructed by a draconian registration process, which saw 50% of applications rejected.
The report also highlighted that union activity was obstructed and blocked within Bangladesh’s eight Export Processing Zones.
In 2024, a total of 22 trade unionists died for their trade union activism in six countries including Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea, the index showed.
It mentioned that Shahidul Islam, a trade union leader of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, was murdered in Gazipur on April 25, 2023, after visiting a factory to address a dispute over unpaid wages.
Upon leaving the factory, he and other union officials were brutally attacked by a gang.
ITUC general secretary Luc Triangle said that the Index has tracked a rapid decline in workers’ rights for 11 years in every region of the world.
He said that workers were the heart of democracy, and their right to be heard was crucial to the health and sustainability of democratic systems.
According to the report, the Middle East and North Africa continued to rank as the world’s worst region for workers’ rights with an average rating of 4.74, marking a significant and alarming deterioration from 4.53 in 2023.
It, however, showed that two countries Romania and Brazil have seen their rating improve in 2024.
