Constructing and Practicing Rights: A Perspective of Female Factory Workers in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper focuses on the meaning of constructing and practicing rights to female factory workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In response to the dynamic relations of power and authorities, claiming rights for female factory workers often means to step out of the familiar social-cultural framework. In the uneven process of rights formation, participating in urban geopolitics, confrontations with gender order is inevitable. I describe how state policies and the influence of transnational capitalism have effects on shaping gender order. Also, various worker organizations, including local and transnational workers’ NGOs and trade unions, have deeply participated in the representation of rights. By assisting with mental and physical health care for workers to fulfill their motherhood responsibilities, these organizations consolidate connections between female workers. In this process, working experiences and personal lives are intertwined by the workers’ NGOs. By examining how dominant forces interplay and compete with one another, I point out that female factory workers in Bangladesh exercise their rights through various approaches and develop more empirical and relational concepts of rights. The ways female workers organize and claim their rights reflect the transformation of the social-cultural context of Bangladesh.