Fashion Forward | Rana Plaza 10 years on — is fashion safer for garment workers?

Join our discussion panel commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse, which killed 1,138 garment workers and injured another 2,500 — most of whom sewed clothes for some of the world’s biggest fashion brands.

In a collaboration between ActionAid, Baptist World Aid, Oxfam, and USYD Fashion Revolution, our panel of experts will break down where we are at now in ensuring safe workplace conditions for women garment workers and what else we can do to secure their rights.

OUR SPEAKERS:

TAMAZER AHMED, Manager — Women's Rights & Gender Equity, ActionAid Bangladesh
Tamazer works to ensure the rights of women and workers. She has over 10 years of experience in development across contexts in Kenya and Bangladesh, having worked for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) and USAID/Bangladesh's Program Office, among others, and has previously worked as a freelance project design consultant.

NAYEEM EMRAN, Economic Justice Strategic Lead, Oxfam Australia
Nayeem has more than 13 years’ experience driving sustainable change in collaboration with a range of stakeholders including unions, development partners and governments — in Asia and the Pacific. Having worked for the International Finance Corporation and International Labour Organization, Nayeem’s work is wide-ranging, incorporating policy reform, social and environmental compliance, gender empowerment and advocacy on workers’ rights.

BONNIE GRAHAM, Advocacy Lead, Baptist World Aid Australia
Bonnie is the producer of the annual Ethical Fashion Report. Over the past 4 years, Bonnie has helped assess almost 600 brands on their efforts to mitigate forced labour, worker exploitation and environmental degradation in their supply chains. Prior to her role at Baptist World Aid, Bonnie worked in the fashion industry — an experience which catalysed her to advocate for better conditions for garment workers and stronger environmental practice.

MICHELLE HIGELIN, Executive Director, ActionAid Australia (moderator)
Michelle has more than two decades of experience working to advance women’s rights in Australia and internationally, including as the former Deputy General Secretary of one of the largest women’s rights movements globally, the World YWCA. Michelle has served on global advisory groups to the United Nations Population Fund and the World Food Programme, and convened the NGO Working Group on Peace at the United Nations in Geneva. For the past six years Michelle has worked with ActionAid driving gender transformative development and humanitarian programming.

The development of an acclaimed safety agreement, the International Accord, has saved the lives of thousands of garment workers, with more than 190 fashion brands signed on. However, 10 years on from the Rana Plaza disaster, there is still much more work to be done to ensure that all women workers can claim their rights to a safe workplace. We hope you can join us for this important discussion.

Doors open at 6pm for 6:30pm start. This event is generously sponsored by Young Henrys Brewery. We promote the responsible consumption of alcohol. 

Please note: The event is held in an accessible venue & has limited off street parking