Seminar: Reproductive health care status available within the factory premises”

New Projects Seminar Series at the GSSR

The GSSR announces the tenth in our new series of seminars addressed both to doctoral students and academic staff. The seminars aim to bring together students and established researchers working in the same field, thus promoting closer interaction and future collaboration between them.

During the seminars doctoral students present for discussion well-advanced research projects, with experienced scholars from various academic centres in Poland and abroad invited to take the role of commentators.

The seminars take place on the Zoom platform and are open to all.

This seminar is scheduled for October 19th at 12:00 Warsaw time (CET, GMT+1) with Marzia Sultana presenting the topic, “Reproductive health care status available within the factory premises”, Prof. Subhadra Channa (University of Delhi) and Prof. Dorota Hall (IFiS PAN) as commentators.

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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82900198504?pwd=N0pvQldiTE42YWl0S212ZWxhNWZXQT09

• Meeting ID: 829 0019 8504
• Passcode: 428345

 Programme

• Chair: Michal Pachocki
• 12.00 Introduction Agnieszka Kościańska: (supervisor)
• 12.05 Seminar presentation: Reproductive health care status available within the factory premises
• 12.40 Comments from Subhadra Channa
• 12.50 Comments from Dorota Hall
• 13.00 Discussion
• 13:15 Closing remarks

 Next seminars:November 2 2021- Barbara Barysz: Different models of subjectivity rooted in tradition by the example of philosophical conservative journalism in contemporary Poland : Reproductive health considerations in occupational safety: missing links of Polish/European Union framework for corporate social responsibility as policy solution for women garment workers in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

 Marzia Sultana, Reproductive health care status available within the factory premises

Differences in access to quality reproductive health (RH) care services between developed and developing countries have been recognized by numerous researchers who are engaged in low-resource countries for these divergences. RH rights are a global health concern yet there remains a scarcity of empirical evidence about inequalities in availability and utilization of providing care services. Currently, Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of readymade garment (RMG) industries where the main workforces are more than 4 million women and adolescent girls. Poland is one of the major importers of apparel goods from Bangladesh, with almost two billion U.S. Dollar imports in 2019. Nonetheless, women workers engaged in RMG factories deprived of their basic health and safety rights, irrespective of their huge contribution to Bangladesh’s economy.

My doctoral research is about examining and analyzing the status of the RH rights situation and how Polish and EU stakeholders are exercising their corporate social responsibility to contribute to the improvement of the overall occupational health and safety policies and practices in readymade garment industry, Bangladesh. The chapter I will present in this seminar is part of result section, outlined the infrastructural facilities and other scopes available in the factories where the research participants were working. Data were collected both from compliance and non-compliance factories located in Bangladesh, where the research participants were women and adolescent girls.

Furthermore, this chapter focuses on their reproductive health care status, how the female workers experience menstrual hygiene management, antenatal care, planned for delivering child, post-delivery care and also their experience or knowledge about unwanted pregnancy termination within the factory premises. Findings from conducted interviews suggests huge workload, extended working hours, paid and unpaid leave, medical leave, delay in receiving salary and wages etc. Concerns were expressed about unpleasant working environment due to scarcity of air circulation, heat, a sort of dirty toilets etc. mostly by the workers of noncompliance factories.

Moreover, all factories does have medical center/corner, where workers mainly received primary care/first aid for the occupational accidents and injuries. In very few compliance factories female workers got weight measurement and some counselling during their pregnancy. Some of the factories had referral linkage with other government and non-government health facilities, which women workers got benefited from availing antenatal care. Hardly any counselling about pregnancy care was provided by the caregiver of the factory medical center. Suggestion about Tetanus toxoid vaccination, plan for facility delivery rather than home delivery, post-delivery care and dealing with unwanted pregnancy were totally absent from the service provided by the medical center of both compliance and noncompliance factories.

In summary, findings from collected data shows that there is discrepancy between the official narrative and the actual practice about available facilities by considering the overall working environment including the RH care facilities offered by the factory owners in Bangladesh.

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