Low Pay in Bangladesh

Available for over a year

An 80% rise in the minimum wage, but will it really help Bangladesh's poor? Bangladesh built its garment industry on cheap labour. Now there is the promise of an 80% rise - although that will still be among the lowest for factory workers anywhere. Amidst strikes and unrest, we talk to the family of one poor garment worker to see what it is like to live on two dollars a day. We speak to one of Bangladesh's leading economists, Hossain Rahman, of the Dhaka-based think-tank The Power and Participation Research Centre. And, we speak to the country's commerce minister, Ghulam Muhammed Quader, who acknowledges that corruption remains a serious problem within government. Plus, we talk to local app designer, Ashraf Abil, who says that technology will help to transform the ability of ordinary Bangladeshis to side-step the bureaucratic challenges. But ahead of elections in the country, what is the prospect of meaningful progress for the country's poorest workers?