Sanchita Saxena on Worker Safety

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Initiatives targeting working conditions in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have sometimes been cited as the way forward to address issues of health and safety of workers. In this podcast, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi talks to Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, Executive Director of the Institute for South Asia Studies (ISAS) at the University of California at Berkeley, about the pervasive problem and the absence of an effective remedy. While noting the progress of initiatives like Accord and Alliance which were designed to help prevent the recurrence of tragedies like the collapse of Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saxena argues that such initiatives do not go far enough, and foreign brands and the home state have to play a more active role.

Saxena is also the Director of the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at ISAS under the Institute. She is the author of Made in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka: The Labor Behind the Global Garments and Textiles Industries (Cambria Press, 2014). She has also been a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. in 2010 and 2014.  Dr. Saxena holds a PhD in political science from UCLA. Her commentaries have been featured in theNew York Times, Economic and Political Weekly, Thomson Reuters, The Daily Star, Globe and Mail and aired on Public Radio International, Voice of America, LinkTV, and KPFA.

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This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.