This field brief documents the administrative and practical barriers migrant garment workers face when attempting to register to vote in their place of residence rather than a distant home district — and what NUK's outreach drives have found effective in addressing them.
Key barriers documented
- Proof-of-residence documentation requirements that are difficult for recent migrants to produce.
- Limited awareness of registration update periods among workers focused on factory shift schedules.
- Reluctance among some workers to engage with registration processes perceived as bureaucratically complex or risky.
What worked in outreach
NUK's most recent drive, covered in Voter Registration Drive Reaches Garment Workers in Savar Industrial Zone, found that registration outreach delivered by an organisation workers already recognised from compliance or health programming achieved substantially higher engagement than generic civic outreach.
This finding reinforces NUK's broader institutional strategy: new program areas consistently perform better when built on trust established through existing workplace-based programming.
Program connection
Read more in NUK's Voter Registration for Garment Workers program.