A recent study report of USA-based New York University's Stern Centre for Business and Human Rights has said that millions of people working in the readymade garment industry of Bangladesh still face unsafe conditions. The report, released on Thursday, also said that Bangladesh has more factories engaged in the global RMG business than stated by its industry.

The findings of US organisation came at a time when Accord and Alliance's safety inspections have reportedly indicated that most of the RMG factories in Bangladesh are maintaining 'stringent' safety standards laid down by the Western retailers' bodies. However, President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has ruled out findings of the report.

According to the report, Bangladesh's US$25 billion garment industry has been suffering from safety problems since the 2013 collapse of a complex, the Rana Plaza, in which more than 1,100 people were killed. Thousands of factories have been undergoing inspections and dozens closed over safety concerns. But at many functioning factories, employees fall outside the purview of those improvements, the report said. It said, more than 7,000 factories in Bangladesh are producing goods for the global fashion business, nearly double the 3,600 exporting factories that the BGMEA operates. Many of those are small- and medium-sized factories, the workers of which indirectly produce goods for foreign brands through larger factories.

Sarah Labowitz, Co-Director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, in a statement, said: "Though global brands assert they have strict policies against subcontracting, in reality, millions of workers and thousands of smaller factories are producing their goods. Working in these factories is often highly risky." The US study documented 7,179 factories, and those previously uncounted factories are largely informal and unregulated, meaning they're the ones that tend to be the most dangerous.

www.stern.nyu.edu