At this moment Bangladesh’s finest and top export source is the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry. The Garment industry has grown to be the mainstay of the nation’s economy, and the “Made in Bangladesh” label has also elevated Bangladesh. Most essentially, Bangladesh ranked second in terms of total garment exports, with $46.99 billion generated, according to the World Trade Organization’s 2023 World Statistical Review. Known as the “Textile capital of the world,” Bangladesh is home to the biggest green ready-made garment (RMG) sector globally. However, the RMG industry continues to be the largest employer of women in Bangladesh. Among them the Home-Based Workers are playing vital role to the mainstream supply chain in the RMG Workforce.

Home-based workers are those who work from home or another location outside of a formal factory setting. These labourers are usually hired by the companies or middlemen to perform certain tasks like finishing, stitching, or embroidery. This industry has offered opportunities for impoverished and marginalized women to earn livelihoods. However, the majority of the workers and their families with lack of literacy rate, are unaware of issues pertaining to their jobs and their interactions with the factories, such as gender abuse, price sensitivity, health risks, and work agronomics. While this subsector provides labour on a piece-rate basis to major export companies, it is nevertheless mainly unseen. Workers who work from home, especially women, have little opportunity to bargain for better working conditions and no leverage over their employers. Besides, these homeworkers have minimal negotiating power with their employers as they are in a complete unorganized situation and few options to change their working conditions. In addition, the majority of them are unaware of labour laws and other wage and working-hour regulations, which leads them to accept unfavorable terms for their labour. As a result, home-based workers put up with horrible working conditions and lengthy hours. On the contrary, the middlemen or contractors take advantage of low-cost female labour and exploit them harshly. To endorse these problems, Bangladesh Labour Foundation (BLF), supported by Oxfam GB has initiated this project to capacitate those little skilled and marginalized women who are engaged in home-based works in RMG sectors. Hence BLF is working with these Home-based RMG workers for a long time, because this sector of RMG is totally untouched in case of advancement. The project is supported by Oxfam GB and co-financed by European Union (EU). The target group of this project is home-based workers those who are living in the Gazipur and Dhaka districts