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<p>Ensuring the safety of garment sector workers around the world is of critical importance.
Whilst progress has been made since the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2011, the Clean
Clothes Campaign is right to say safety improvements in factories in Bangladesh need
to speed up. The second review of the EU-US-Bangladesh Sustainability Compact, conducted
in the first week of February, acknowledged the complexities involved in making improvements
across the garment sector and highlighted it as a priority area where all involved
– brands, factories and the government – need to work together to make progress.</p><p>The
UK is addressing this sector-wide issue in two ways. Firstly, our programme is improving
the institutional capacity of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments
to enable this government body to follow up on Corrective Action Plans; there are
now 270 inspectors in place (up from around 90 in 2013) who are trained and equipped
to do their jobs. We are also active in the 3+5 high-level platform that meets periodically
to monitor progress of the Sustainability Compact action plan. Through future 3+5
discussion, we will continue to emphasise the urgency of taking forward remediation
in factories.</p>
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