As Bangladesh turns 50, repression grows amid economic boom
- The country’s economy has grown more than 7 per cent annually over the last decade, and per capita GDP has more than quadrupled since 2000
- But critics say democracy is being eroded as PM Sheikh Hasina enacts increasingly repressive rules where a cartoon or Facebook post could land one in jail
Bangladesh turns 50 this week as an economic success story but also an increasingly repressive de facto one-party state where a cartoon or Facebook post can land you in jail, or worse.
ABM Shamsuddin, 66, has been a major beneficiary of the boom. He launched his sweater factory in 1998 with 110 machines and 250 workers. Now, Hannan Group’s five factories supply two dozen European brands and employ more than 10,000 people.
“My annual turnover is US$100 million,” said Shamsuddin as his workers stitched clothes for German high-street outlet Esprit. “I became a hero from zero.”
Praising the government for building decent infrastructure such as roads, ports and energy facilities, he predicts “a new era of prosperity” for the country of 168 million people.
One of his employees is Ruma, part of a 3 million-strong army of garment workers who have turned Bangladesh into the world’s second-largest clothing exporter behind China.
When Ruma’s mother died from diarrhoea in the 1980s, she was sent to live with relatives where an uncle tore up her books because “education isn’t for girls”.
She now earns US$420 in some months. During the Muslim festival of Eid she and her husband take home more than US$1,000 and are able to spend US$120 a month educating their two children.
