Of the four million people working in garment factories in Bangladesh, 85 percent are women, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. The majority of the women come from villages where employment is scarce and endure dangerous working conditions in factories to support large families back home. “I wish I had a garments job instead of laboring in the fields, look at my hands,” said Alisha Begum, who had come to the scene of the garment factory disaster that killed at least 1,127 about a month ago to look for the body of her younger sister, Rehana. The ready-made garments (RMG) industry makes up more than 75 percent of Bangladesh’s income for exports and is also the largest employer of women. The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development reported that women said RMG work “for all its many problems, was a better way to make money than what one had done in the past.”
