Experience from Bangladesh with ethical trading initiatives

There has been increasing concern among consumers in the North about labour standards and conditions of employment in producing/exporting countries in the South. Such concerns have inevitably led to the adoption of labour codes by buyers who have then tried to impose these on manufacturers from supplying nations. Exporting countries have always viewed this type of move (e.g. environmental standards, labour standards, child labour issues) emanating from the North with great suspicion, taking these to be essentially non-tariff barriers being used by Northern vested interests (including organized labour, e.g. in the US) to deny markets todeveloping countries. Not with standing such animosity and suspicion among developing country producers, much progress has been made with respect to labour standards, e.g. in Bangladesh.