Empowering RMG workers: towards a conceptual framework

In the Bangladeshi Ready-made Garment (RMG) industry, workers face constant hardships in communicating with government, accessing regulations and policies, banking to reduce poverty and disasters, educating themselves for a better life and accessing government services. Recently, scholars from developing countries have suggested that mobile phones have the potential to empower the deprived and disadvantaged. However, in the Bangladeshi context the topic is still under researched. This research fills a gap by presenting an initial mobile phone based empowerment framework for RMG workers. The framework examines possible mobile phone based empowerment tools that could provide workers with access to information, market and government. The framework suggests that outcomes include an increased sense of control, self-efficacy, knowledge and competency. In future, the empowerment framework presented in this research will be applied to the development of a mobile based information system for RMG workers. This research is significant as it adopts an empowerment focus rather than an individual consumer focused development outcomes. The outcomes and results of this research will be of potential value to the government, development agencies and mobile telecommunications in accelerating the development of mobile based services in Bangladesh and in other developing countries.