Bangladesh's ready-made garment (RMG) sector employs millions of workers, the great majority of them women, and has been the backbone of the country's export economy for over three decades. NUK has worked inside this industry since the early 1990s — making it one of the first Bangladeshi NGOs to treat garment workers' rights as a dedicated, long-term program area rather than a side issue.
Why garment worker rights matter
Many women enter RMG work directly from rural areas, often as primary or sole earners for their households. Without organised support, they can face long hours, unsafe working conditions, inconsistent wages, and little recourse when problems arise. NUK's program exists to close that gap — not by working against factories, but by helping factories, workers, and buyers meet shared standards.
What the program does
- Social compliance support — helping factory management understand and meet the social, legal, and environmental standards that international buyers require.
- In-house capacity building — training compliance officers and HR staff inside factories to identify and resolve issues before they escalate.
- Workplace health services — for over a decade, NUK ran on-site health care for garment workers directly inside factories, later transferring those services to factory management once they were established and sustainable.
- Worker rights education — basic literacy, legal rights awareness, and information on where to turn for support.
- Civic participation — supporting migrant garment workers, who are frequently left off local voter rolls, to register and exercise their right to vote.
Working with industry, not against it
NUK has partnered directly with RMG manufacturing groups to raise compliance standards to the level required by major international buyers. One example is NUK's long-running collaboration with the Anowara Group, a prominent RMG manufacturer, to strengthen social, legal, and environmental compliance — a partnership that also connected NUK with international corporate social responsibility programs through buyers sourcing from the group's factories.
From factory floor to community hospital
As NUK's on-site factory health services matured, the organisation transferred that day-to-day care to factory management and redirected its own health investment toward underserved rural communities — a shift that led directly to the founding of the Egarosindur Community Hospital and Kishoreganj Eye Hospital.
Looking ahead
As Bangladesh's garment sector continues to evolve under pressure from international buyers and changing trade rules, NUK continues to focus on institutionalising compliance practices inside factories — building lasting internal capacity rather than one-off fixes.