Last month, young people in Bangladesh revolted against their government over a jobs quota bill that would have reserved 30 percent of public-sector jobs for family members of veterans of the 1971 war with Pakistan. Protestors did manage to drive out the country’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina, though not before hundreds were killed by authorities.
Bangladesh, like many developing countries in a dollar-centered world, suffered disproportionately from Covid-19 and from the higher commodity prices that ensued in the wake of the lockdowns. A recent IMF review found that its public debt servicing costs were almost 72 percent of its combined export and grant income. Millions of Bangladeshis endured lengthy blackouts in 2022 when contracted LNG shipments were acquired by Europeans for higher prices on the spot market after Russia disrupted continental gas supplies.
Bangladesh earns 84 percent of its export income from garments, but the statutory wage for garment workers is less than two thirds of the typical household cost of living, according to the Anker Research Institute. In 2023 several big western clothing brands signed a Fair Labor letter to Hasina asking that the wage be increased, noting that it had not increased since 2019 despite a substantial increase in living costs. Workers’ unrest in Bangladesh has often been repressed because of ties between the country’s garment oligarchs and Sheikh Hasina’s ruling party.
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