WASHINGTON — Workers’ rights abuses persist in Bangladesh apparel factories even as international retailers and brands actively engage in instituting safety reforms following two industrial tragedies, according to a new report by the International Labor Rights Forum. 

 

The report, titled “Our Voices, Our Safety. Bangladeshi Workers Speak Out,” charges that a “climate of fear and intimidation” prevails in Bangladesh’s garment industry. 

 

Compiled by the ILRF , a human rights organization in collaboration with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, the report is based on interviews with more than 70 workers and union representatives between October 2014 and January 2015. The majority of the workers quoted in the story spoke under assumed names and their faces were blacked out in the photos to protect their identities, according to the report. Only three workers, all of whom are also union members, spoke under their own names and were openly pictured in photos.