Sadaf Siddiqi on Rana Plaza

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Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi is a director at Sidko Limited, a Bangladeshi garment exporter. She is also one of Bangladesh's leading poets in English. Her recent publication, Sari Reams, offers a poignant glimpse of Bangladesh's life, covering a range of topics.

She is also actively involved with Nari Pokkho, an women's activist organisation that works on combating violence against women, and recently is involved with rehabilitation of rape survivors from the 1971 war.

IHRB's Salil Tripathi met Sadaf at the Jaipur Literature Festival in late January, where they spoke of the Rana Plaza tragedy and its aftermath. She pointed out how Bangladeshi garment sector is working hard to improve standards and emphasised the need for major brands to squeeze the suppliers less, if they wanted standards to improve. She also stressed how Bangladeshi workers were united with the industry to ensure that the industry thrives, and highlighted one of the main gains of Bangladesh's garment export boom - the empowerment of women.