page_title: Textile industry in Bangladesh
section_title: Ergonomic hazards
hierarchical_section_title: Textile industry in Bangladesh / Workers' health / Ergonomic hazards
caption_attribution_description: A clothing textile garment factory / assembly line in Bangladesh
context_page_description: The textile and clothing industries provide the single source of growth in Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings. By 2002 exports of textiles, clothing, and ready-made garments accounted for 77% of Bangladesh's total merchandise exports.
  In 1972, the World Bank approximated the gross domestic product of Bangladesh at US$6.29 billion, and it grew to $173.82 billion by 2014, with $31.2 billion of that generated by exports, 82% of which was ready-made garments. As of 2016 Bangladesh held the 2nd place in producing garments just after China. Bangladesh is the world's second-largest apparel exporter of western fast fashion brands. Sixty percent of the export contracts of western brands are with European buyers and about thirty percent with American buyers and ten percent to others. Only 5% of textile factories are owned by foreign investors, with most of the production being controlled by local investors.
context_section_description: Musculoskeletal disorders have been identified as an important concern among textile workers. These complaints are related to highly repetitive movements, awkward postures in seated positions, repetitive hand and arm movements, prolonged working hours without adequate breaks and poorly designed work stations. These risk factors result in adverse health outcomes of the workers such as musculoskeletal complaints of neck, back, hands, shoulders and lower limbs.
  Most of the female workers in garments factories work as sewing operators, sewing operator helper, cutting personnel and finishing personnel. Sewing machines operators usually work in seated postures with forward flexion of the head, neck, and torso for long periods of time. This results in strain on the neck and back, and eventually to pain. A case study conducted by Habib M. among sewing machines operators in Bangladesh, found that the high risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders was related to working in a sitting position bending the neck more than 30° for more than 6 to 7 hours. Additionally, sitting in a forward flexed posture causes the lumbar spine to flatten that leads to an imbalanced disc pressure and a static contraction of the extensor muscles of the back. The flattened lumbar spine may cause back fatigue, disc degeneration and back injuries. But it is not only related to posture, design of the workstation can also worsen the problem. Sarder and colleagues found that seats in garment factories were devoid of a backrest, which would allow intermittent short breaks for resting the upper body from bending. Also, many seats are hard and wooden, without the cushion to prevent compression at the area of the ischial tuberosities. Even though some factories have sewing machines tables with height adjustability options 70 – 80 cm, workers rarely or never adjusted them because it takes between 10–15 minutes to adjust them.
  Moreover, workers experience excessive hand work that involves gripping and pinching with the arm in constrained postures which causes wrist pain. Sewing machine operators are involve in highly repetitive movements of the elbows and wrists. Researchers have found that doing activities for stitching that involves wrist flexion of more than 45° wrist extension 10-12 times per minute, put the worker at higher risk of developing wrist and elbow problems.
  These risk factors have a negative impact not only on the musculoskeletal health, but also on the medical cost, efficiency, and optimal performance on activities of daily living. Minimizing ergonomic risk factors through ergonomic intervention for workers is often neglected in many of the countries. The reasons may be the scarcity of relevant professionals and additional cost for implementations on which majority of the owners are less interested. Thus, there are high rate of musculoskeletal symptoms in different body parts among sewing machine operators which points out for proper interventions. To reduce awkward posture for the neck, back and shoulders, the sewing machine table, chair and paddle positions should be adjusted considering the worker's body height in a sitting position. The workers should be educated about the significance of postures on their health so that they do not neglect the instructions.
caption: Working environment inside a garment factory in Bangladesh
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