"I shall be no longer deprived and dominated by others"

Molly is a migrant garment’s worker who reached Dhaka with her family in 2008. Her father was a farmer, cultivating others’ land as a daily laborer and sometimes as a sharecroppers, and her mother passed away when she was a child. She has three sisters and a brother. Her father’s income was not sufficient to maintain all the family. For this reason, Molly started working in a garment’s factory in 2009. However, her salary was quite small, and it was difficult for her to live in Dhaka.

In addition, when Molly joined the factory, the management didn’t provide her any joining letter. Being unaware of the workers’ rights as stated in Bangladesh Labor Law 2006, she didn’t ask for it and she has also been subjected to other rights’ violations.

Since 2016, Molly has been involved in one of the Workers’ Group established by Occupational, Safety, Health and Environment (OSHE) Foundation, becoming in a short time its leader. She is actively directing the group altogether with a co-leader. After participating to several training on leadership, participation committee, Labour Law 2006 and its amendments and workers’ rights in general, she is now aware of her and other workers’ rights, and she decided to fight for them.

Recently Molly and the co-leader of the same group formed a trade union inside the factory where they are working, comprising of 175 members and she has been elected as General Secretary. Feeling stronger and with the support of other colleagues, she asked the factory’s management to provide to everyone the joining letter. Till now, the management did not agree, but they are not planning to stop their bargaining till when they will reach their objective.

Molly is now feeling she is empowered and she can contribute to the decision making process in her family and in the society. None can dominate her: she can lead the group to bargain with the factory’s management about their rights and safety.