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Human Rights

Rohingya refugees to be relocated to remote island

Authorities in Bangladesh have controversially decided to encamp tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar at a remote offshore location. A committee comprising state officials in the coastal districts of Bangladesh has been set up to direct authorities to help identify undocumented Myanmarese refugees and relocate them to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal, media reported on Monday. “The committee will assist transferring both registered and unregistered refugees from ROHINGYAMyanmar to Thengar Ch...

Yunus, 22 global leaders write to end Rohingya crisis

Fifteen Nobel laureates including Muhammad Yunus and eight other global leaders on Thursday wrote an open letter to the United Nations Security Council to immediately intervene to stop “persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar”. They noted that a human tragedy “amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity ROHINGYAis unfolding in Myanmar”, according to a press release of Yunus Centre. The global leaders insisted that it is time for the international community as a whole to speak out much more strongly. They were...

Symphony provides handsets for underprivileged slum girls

Recently the number one handset brand Symphony Mobile signed a MOU with ‘TERRE DES ITALIA’ (TDH) Italia. Under the MOU Symphony mobile handed over 200 Feature Phones & 20 Smartphones to the officials of TDH Italia. Those mobile phones will be distributed by TDH Italia among the underprivileged slum girls at pr-pic_mouCapital’s Baunia Badh slam area, Palllabi. Those girls are members of a project by TDH Italia. The MOU signed at Edison Group’s Head office. From Edison Group Managing Director, Mr. Jakaria Shahid &...

Satellites reveal ‘child slave camps’ in Bangladesh

Hundreds of child slaves could be working on a protected World Heritage Site in Bangladesh, according to a researcher who discovered five previously unknown labour camps using satellite technology. Two fish processing plants located on the Sundarbans National Park in the south west of Bangladesh were already suspected of using forced labour, including, it is claimed, children as young as nine, working for up to 40 hours straight. The additional five camps, used to dry fish for pet food, were located by Professor Kevin Bales of the University of Nottingham using satellite technology including Google Earth. “People are suffering here. Children are killed in these places regularly: sometimes they’re

Fatal factory fire in Bangladesh is déjà vu

The horror of worker deaths is overshadowing Eid celebrations in Bangladesh. Last weekend, a fierce fire ripped through a three-storey packaging factory and eventually caused the building to collapse. The death toll so far at Tampaco Foils Ltd is 33 workers, with dozens more injured. Before it was reduced to ruins, Tampaco counted Nestle in Bangladesh and British American Tobacco among its multinational clients. The Bangladesh government has announced compensation for the victims and ordered an investigation. Criminal complaints have reportedly been filed, including against the factory owner, who is a former member of parliament. But this latest disaster begs the question: how many more people need to die before Bangladesh finally tackles its unsafe factories?

BATB abuses children in its supply chain: Swedwatch

In its Smokescreens in the Supply Chain report, the Swedish NGO blamed British American Tobacco (BAT), the world’s third largest tobacco company, for “expanding cultivation into new countries without adequately addressing human rights challenges”. Swedwatch said it had identified widespread child labour issues and severe health issues in BAT’s Bangladeshi supply chain. Frida Arounsavath, a researcher at Swedwatch, told EurActiv.com that the workers producing tobacco for BAT Bangladesh (BATB) were farmers, their wives and children, and also hired agriculture labourers, as well as their family members. “Children and adults alike report health problems from exposure to pesticides, absorption of nicotine through the skin when handling the leaves (the acute poisoning is called Green...
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