Behind Bangladesh’s garment boom, workers cut food, healthcare as wages fall short

Before dawn each day, garment worker Shilpi Khatun cooks over a wood-fired clay stove because her family cannot afford gas, before heading to a factory in Gazipur, an industrial hub on the outskirts of Dhaka. The 27-year-old is the sole breadwinner in a household where her husband is unemployed and her parents and in-laws depend on her wages.

Rising prices have left Khatun struggling to afford basic necessities despite five years in the garment industry, a frustration shared by thousands of Bangladesh’s garment workers who staged protests last week demanding the minimum monthly wage be raised to 30,000 taka ($242.82) from 12,500 taka. “Everything costs more now.

Rent has doubled, food is more expensive and whatever I earn disappears before the month is over,” Khatun said as she gathered leafy greens outside her home to eat with rice for lunch. Last week’s unrest, some of it violent, forced hundreds of factories to shut down as workers staged protests and clashed with police, who used tear gas and sound grenades to disperse demonstrators.