Farmers in Bangladesh
Country: Bangladesh |Â Partner: Labour Resource Centre
Aims
- To increase awareness of labour rights amongst agricultural workers
- To mobilise and develop the organisational capacity of LRC's member trade unions
- To develop an effective lobbying strategy to improve the working conditions in rural Bangladesh and to persuade the government of Bangladesh ratify and implement the ILO Conventions relating to agricultural workers
Successes
- LRC teaches 500 workers annually to read and write using materials which explore their social and economic context
- 300 activists are trained each year as trade union organisers in organisational, communication and advocacy skills
- Members are actively involved in campaigns and produce a range of materials for non-literate and newly literate agricultural workers about their labour rights
- LRC pursues legal actions against employers who violate labour rights
The facts
- More than half of Bangladesh's 127 million population lives below the poverty line
- Landlessness increased dramatically from 34% in 1972 to 68.8% in 1992
- Only 4.25% of the estimated 42.5 million rural peasants and small farmers - 83% of the country’s workforce - are organised
- LRC has more than 155 trade union branches who represent 31,500 permanently employed workers and 45,000 seasonal workers in 64 districts
The Labour Resource Centre (LRC) works to build the capacity of landless agricultural workers to organise and to provide them with the literacy skills needed to improve their working conditions.
Over 80% of Bangladesh's workforce is rural, yet the vast majority are extremely poor, illiterate and politically marginalized.
These farmers live in harsh and degrading conditions, earning a pittance working for landlords. Their situation is worsened through an absence of political and social awareness and a lack of capacity to defend their rights. As a result of this they are often exploited and oppressed.
Women face an even more difficult situation due to the persistence of conservative religious structures that serve to oppress women, and LRC works to increase women's awareness and rights and campaigns to eliminate the discrepancy between treatment of women and men.
Both War on Want and LRC believe literacy is a catalyst for the empowerment of the rural labourers and small farmers. LRC's literacy programme and rights training workshops provide workers with the means to organise themselves and to improve their educational and practical skills, both of which will equip them to better demand that their rights to be respected.
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