flickr/ Zoriah
Three terrible exclusions
More than 1100 dead, many others coping with temporary or permanent disabilities, and people still missing. The 24 April 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse – Bangladesh's worst ever industrial disaster – has left the country reeling and Bangladeshi rights groups working overtime to help affected families.
Nearly two months after the building collapsed, the World Bank (WB) published its ten-year progress report looking at poverty trends in Bangladesh, titled Bangladesh Poverty Assessment: Assessing a Decade of Progress in Reducing Poverty, 2000-2010. "These are impressive achievements!" the report exclaimed while describing the country's success in reducing poverty, and Bangladesh surely deserves some credit. But while the report looked at a wide variety of economic indicators in making its assessment, it failed to address the critical links between poverty and human rights, especially in three areas: disability, labour protections, and gender-based violence.