Compliance versus accountability: struggles for dignity and daily bread in the Bangladesh garment industry

Abstract

Accountability gives ‘teeth’ to the concept of rights and hence is indispensable to the status and practice of citizenship. A ‘culture of compliance’, on the other hand, refers to the willingness to abide by a given set of regulations (whether laws or codes). It is not the same as a culture of accountability, but it need not be incompatible with it, and may even contain the seeds from which such a culture can emerge. Whether it has done so or not in Bangladesh is discussed in this chapter with reference to the garment industry and conditions for garment workers