Woman shot dead in latest Bangladesh pay protest
A Bangladeshi woman was shot dead Wednesday during violent protests by garment workers after they rejected a government wage increase offer, with the victim's husband blaming the police. The South Asian country's 3,500 garment factories account for around 85 percent of its US$55 billion in annual exports, supplying many of the world's top brands including Levi's, Zara and H&M. But monthly pay for the sector's four million workers, the vast majority of whom are women, starts at 8,300 taka (US$75). A government-appointed panel raised wages on Tuesday by 56.25 percent, but striking workers demand a near-tripling to 23,000 taka. "Police opened fire. She was shot in the head... She died in a car on the way to a hospital," said Mohammad Jamal, the husband of 23-year-old sewing machine operator Anjuara Khatun, a mother of two. Jamal said that police had fired on about 400 workers calling for wage increase in the industrial city of Gazipur, outside the capital Dhaka. "Six to seven people were shot at and injured," he said. Bacchu Mia, a police inspector posted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital where the body was brought, confirmed the death but gave no further details. Police said fresh violence broke out on Wednesday in Gazipur, home to hundreds of factories, after 4,000 people staged protests rejecting the wage decision. Thousands more blocked a highway where at least five officers were injured, two of them critically, a police inspector said on condition of anonymity. The Netherlands-based Clean Clothes Campaign, a textile workers' rights group, dismissed the new pay level as a "poverty wage". Many brands sourcing their clothing from Bangladesh have long-standing living wage pledges, it said, but "they have failed to act, illustrating the emptiness of these commitments". The minimum wage is fixed by a state-appointed board that includes representatives from the manufacturers, unions and wage experts. (AFP)