Dear readers,

I am thrilled to share with you ILRF’s new 100-page report Our Voices, Our Safety: Bangladeshi Garment Workers Speak Out. For a quick glance at the core issues it addresses, check out my short piece on Huffington Post.

Could you please help us spread the word about the report? Here are two ways you can help right now:

  1. Use the social media share tools on Huffington Post to share my blog.
  2. Click here to share the below image of one of the 70 workers interviewed for our report.

Dalia Sikder's testimony about threats she faced

By sharing Our Voices, Our Safety, you’ll help draw attention to the core messages of the report:

  1. Workers, especially women, are not safe because they are surrounded by a web of violence that silences them in their communities, their homes and at work;
  2. Excessively high production quotas and low wages exacerbate safety issues and trap workers in their jobs forcing them to endure the violence; and
  3. Current fire and building safety reforms must be the foundation for a new phase of social reforms grounded in respect for workers’ rights and dignity.

I hope you will take the time to read the whole report, to fully absorb the testimonies of the garment workers we interviewed and to help us find ways to get more people to do the same – to fully ‘hear’ the voices of these workers, the majority of them women. After reading it, please join with Eve Ensler in speaking out about violence against women garment workers and in standing for their voices to be heard!

Eve Ensler's powerful quote

Thanks in advance for helping us circulate the report and draw attention to the voices of women garment workers, in Bangladesh and around the world where too many other women – Cambodian, Honduran, Mexican, and others – endure similar violence every day.

In solidarity,

Judy Gearhart