International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) has told the Bangladesh authorities after looking at a long string of incidents in which workers have been killed, injured or unfairly imprisoned ready-made garments’ sector, it has the impression that the industry has ‘a death wish’.

Neil Kearney, general secretary of ITGLWF, has demanded to know what the government is doing to stop rights violations in the industry following the death of a 20-year old worker at Titanic Products Ltd who was allegedly beaten to death by company officials.

According to Mr. Kearney, 20-year-old Panna, who was working through the night, put on a T-shirt to stave off the early morning cold. He was still wearing it when he left in the morning to get some breakfast. A security guard stopped him, accused him of stealing the T-shirt, and called in the production manager. They took him to an upstairs room and beat him to death. They then strung him up to make it look like he had hung himself, and tried to suppress an investigation by offering some $5,000 to the relatives of the victim.”

In letters addressed to Minister of Labour, Amanullah Aman, and Minster of Trade, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Mr Kearney said this incident is doing terrible damage to the image of Bangladesh’s garment industry.