Bangladesh labor leader arrested during Rana Plaza protest in New Jersey
New Jersy, March 16 (NsNewsWire) — Kalpona Akter, a well-known activist, traveled the US to fight for garment industry safety and raise funds for families in factory disaster.
Kalpona Akter, one of the best-known labor leaders in Bangladesh, has visited 16 American college campuses over the past three weeks, urging students to press two major retailers – The Children’s Place and Benetton – to contribute millions of dollars to help the families of those who died in the Rana Plaza factory building collapse, reports Guardian.
Akter, joined by Mahinur Begum, an 18-year-old survivor of the factory disaster, was visiting the US to pressure companies to do more to improve apparel industry safety in Bangladesh and to contribute to a fund for victims of the Rana Plaza collapse, in which more than 1,100 workers died in April 2013.
But Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, faced several surprising setbacks during her trip. On Thursday, 27 protesters – including the Rana Plaza survivor and Akter – were arrested at the headquarters of The Children’s Place in Secaucus, New Jersey, as they sought to drop off a letter to the company’s chief executive. The police charged them with trespassing.
In an interview on Friday in New York City, Akter – who was released on Thursday after being held for two hours – was upset about the arrest, but far more worried about reports in the Bangladeshi media that she was urging Americans to boycott garments made in Bangladesh. She voiced concern that those reports made her sound like a traitor to the industry and to her cause: helping Bangladeshi workers.
An article in Bangla News 24, which describes itself as the nation’s No 1 “online news portal”, quoted a leading garment industry executive saying that Akter was “destroying the industry” and “was receiving money from foreigners and using it against the industry”.
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Akter said the allegations were flatly wrong. “These jobs are important,” she said. “My very clear message: ‘We want these jobs, but we want these jobs with dignity.’ There is no point asking for a boycott.”
Akter, 39, became a garment factory seamstress at 12, after her father became disabled by several strokes. She said factory managers fired her when she was 16 because she was organizing workers. She later became co-founder of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, which educates workers about their rights.