DHAKA – A pilot programme has been launched by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), offering training to female garment workers in order to enable more women to take up supervisory roles within the factories of Bangladesh.
Currently, 95 per cent of line-supervisors in Bangladesh’s garment factories are male - despite 80 per cent of line-operators in the sewing sections being women. The new GEAR (Gender Equality and Returns) initiative seeks to address this gender imbalance.
While substantially expanding the talent pool from which factories can select their senior employees, early findings from the pilot phase of the programme suggest that the introduction if more female supervisors also boosted factory efficiency.
