Experts in Bangladesh feel the country should fully implement labour rights and codes of international conventions to be eligible for the European Union generalised scheme of preferences (EU GSP) plus benefits. They have called for legislative, structural and administrative amendments to address the challenges related to labour standards.

Major revisions include the elimination of provisions that allowed employment of workers under 12 and the setting up of an administrative process for trade union registration and labour inspection.

With the graduation from the least developed country (LDC) status, Bangladesh will face several challenges, including the loss of preferential market access in the EU.

Local exporters will enjoy the same trade benefit in the EU even after Bangladesh’s graduation if it can obtain GSP plus status by fulfilling the conditions, experts said at a virtual dialogue, titled ‘EU’s EBA & Prospect of GSP+ for Bangladesh: Addressing challenges related to Labour Laws and Rights’, organised jointly by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Networks Matter.

Bangladesh has made a lot of progress in terms of ensuring a decent work environment in factories, especially in the garments sector, and some progress is still needed to make in nine other areas, said CPD’s research director Khondaker Golam Moazzem.

He recommended including addressing workplace harassment issues in the legal framework, properly tackling forced labour issue, concerns of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) committee of experts and the improvement of overall monitoring and implementation framework of decent work, according to Bangla media reports.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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