The festival of Eid-ul-Fitr is just round the corner but this time around thousands of garment workers, who work in the country’s various garment manufacturing units, will not be able to go to their respective villages to be with their family members on this holy occasion.
This is after the Bangladesh Government has decided to restrict the workers to their residential areas only in an effort to control the rapidly escalating coronavirus cases in the country.
As per media reports, a decision in this regard was taken at a recent inter-ministerial meeting led by Health Minister Zahid Maleque.
A decision was also taken in the meeting to form three sub-committees to oversee healthcare activities in the garment manufacturing hubs of Narayanganj, Gazipur and capital Dhaka which are densely populated with garment workers forming a major chunk of the total population.
Further, it was also proposed to form a committee to ensure workers’ safety at their respective factories.
The spread of coronavirus is rising rapidly among the garment workers lately with 97 garment workers found positive of the dreaded virus in the country so far.
Of these infected workers, 47 per cent are women and 53 per cent men.
Narayanganj tops the list of infected garment workers with a total of 26 followed closely by Savar with a tally of 24 coronavirus-positive garment workers and Gazipur 14.
Out of the remaining coronavirus cases, seven and six were, respectively, found in Ashulia and Dhaka while Chittagong and Mymensingh accounted for two each and Manikganj and Jessore one each.
Fourteen other cases were reportedly found in other parts of the country.
These figures were revealed by the Bangladesh Garment Workers’ Solidarity (BGWS) based on their findings recently.
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