Workers in Bangladesh suffer in extreme temperatures

By Annette Gartland on July 22, 2025

Extreme heat is endangering the lives and livelihoods of urban workers in Bangladesh, Climate Rights International (CRI) said in a new report published today (Tuesday).

Inside garment factories and on construction sites and city streets, workers are fainting, falling ill, and even dying in extreme temperatures, with little protection from the government, employers, or the multinational corporations that profit from their labour, CRI says.

“Clothing brands and the factories that supply them need to take urgent steps to provide additional breaks, access to cooling, and hydration,” CRI’s executive director, Brad Adams, said.

To produce its 172-page report, “My Body Is Burning”: Climate Change, Extreme Heat, and Labor Rights in Bangladesh, CRI interviewed more than fifty workers in three of the most heat-exposed industries in the capital, Dhaka: the garment and construction industries and transportation.

All the workers said that they suffered from a range of heat-related health problems. These included dehydration, itchiness, headaches, fever, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, loss of muscle control, temporary vision loss, chest pain, heart palpitations, and a loss of consciousness.

Most of the workers interviewed had either fainted in the heat themselves or had witnessed a colleague collapse on the job. Several workers reported losing consciousness more than once. Some workers had even seen colleagues die in the heat.

Workers suffered mentally and emotionally in the extreme temperatures, reporting feelings of confusion, desperation, hopelessness, and anxiety, CRI said. Some said they had cried because of their working conditions and several said they believed that they might die on the job.

“Garment workers toil over steaming irons, trapped inside poorly ventilated, overheated factories; construction workers carry heavy loads overhead under the midday sun; and rickshaw pullers and delivery riders ferry passengers and cargo back and forth through the city’s sweltering streets,” the CRI report states.

The report shows how systemic labour rights abuses are making it almost impossible for these workers to protect themselves.

Dhaka is extremely vulnerable to heat impacts and has experienced record-breaking temperatures in recent years. In 2025, the heat index in Dhaka reached almost 48°C (about 118°F), triggering a city-wide health advisory that urged people to take protective measures and limit physical exertion.

“Bangladesh is being hit hard by extreme heat resulting from a climate emergency it did almost nothing to cause,” Adams said.

“This crisis is being driven by the relentless greenhouse gas pollution of wealthy, industrialised countries and fossil fuel companies while frontline communities, including those in international supply chains, are left to suffer, with the fewest resources to cope. This is climate injustice in a nutshell.”

CRI found that the impacts of extreme heat on workers often resulted in productivity losses. Those interviewed reported moving and working more slowly in the heat, with some needing to work as much as 50 percent longer to complete tasks during the hot season. Others had to cut shifts short because of heat-related illness, forfeiting pay that they couldn’t afford to lose.

The NGO documented numerous reports of forced and unpaid overtime; denial of breaks, even in extremely hot conditions; and verbal abuse and threats in response to workers slowing down or attempting to rest as a result of heat exhaustion or related illness.

Many workers lacked access to toilets at their worksites, experienced pressures not to use the bathroom frequently, or feared that the water supply at work was unsafe. These challenges led some workers to deliberately restrict their water intake so that they didn’t have to use the bathroom as frequently.

This led to dehydration, urinary tract infections, and an increased risk of other more severe heat-related health issues, CRI said.

Workers told the NGO that they were afraid to speak up about workplace abuses and their suffering in the heat, for fear of retaliation.

Without the implementation of effective workplace adaptation measures, heat exposure would continue to make already dangerous working conditions worse, compounding vulnerabilities for Dhaka’s workers, CRI said.

Gig and construction workers

Delivery platforms operating in Dhaka provide little protection for gig workers, who bike long distances and carry heavy loads in peak heat in exchange for poverty wages and limited benefits, CRI says.

The NGO spoke to workers from foodpanda, a subsidiary of Delivery Hero, who described the physical, emotional, and financial hardship of delivery work in extreme heat.

Construction companies in Dhaka are similarly failing to protect workers from rising temperatures, and are failing to provide safe water and bathroom access at job sites, making it practically impossible for workers to stay properly hydrated at work, CRI reports.

Lack of corporate accountability

Some international clothing brands that source from Bangladesh continue to demand short production timelines and low prices, pushing factories to overwork employees with little regard for conditions on the ground, CRI says, and almost none of them take effective steps to ensure that their suppliers protect workers from the risks of extreme heat.

“A small number of companies, including VF Corporation, the parent company of major brands like The North Face, Vans, and Timberland, have embedded heat protections into their supplier codes of conduct,” CRI said.

“Yet, even in supply chains where some heat protections are mandated by a code of conduct, it is clear that additional efforts are needed, and that enforcement must be tightened.”

CRI spoke with workers who said that their factories supplied a number of brands, including VF, H&M, C&A, Walmart, Primark, and New Look, that are taking at least some steps aimed at protecting workers from hot workplace conditions. All of those workers told CRI that, despite the measures that certain brands are taking, they continued to suffer in the heat.

Inadequate government action

CRI notes that, while there are regulations in Bangladesh that are intended to protect workers’ health and safety, existing protections do not fully account for the growing threat of extreme heat.

“Moreover, these regulations are often unevenly enforced and, critically, fail to adequately protect the informal sector, which accounts for roughly 85 percent of the national workforce,” the NGO said.

“To address the growing extreme heat crisis, the Bangladeshi government needs to strengthen climate and labour protections, including for the informal sector, through measures such as developing and enforcing a national standard for heat management in the workplace.”

CRI says that, as outlined in both the Paris Agreement and Dhaka City’s current adaptation plans, effective execution of these and other climate adaptation efforts in Bangladesh will depend on financial support from the high-income countries most responsible for the climate crisis.

“At the same time, multinational companies need to take responsibility for climate-proofing their supply chains and ensuring safe conditions for the workers they rely on,” the NGO added.

Worker testimonies

The testimonies included in the report include that of Kaswar, who left his coastal village because of recurrent flooding and began working as a rickshaw puller in Dhaka.

“When the humidity and the heat [are] high, it’s really difficult to work in this condition … Sometimes I feel really like … I’m going to die like this,” he told CRI in July 2024.

Kaswar said that he had never experienced such extremes of heat until recently. “I am almost fifty years old, but I never observed or experienced such extreme heat. And I never heard about this type of heat from my father, my grandfather,” he told CRI.

“Almost two months ago, one of my friends, [a] rickshaw driver, he died out of this heat stroke.”

Jamil, a young construction worker in Mirpur told CRI about a colleague who passed out and fell to his death. “I saw my [colleague] fall down when his head was spinning during the hot day … he fell down from the hanging [platform] … and he died.”

Sagnik, a construction worker in Shyamoli, said: “If I take a break for drinking, if the contractor is observing that I tried to take a break, then he will immediately give a bad word. No one [can] take [a] break. Sometimes I get thirsty, but I cannot take a break.”

One garment worker, Binita, said: “Sometimes I feel my hand muscle[s] and my leg muscle[s] [are] cramped. And sometimes I vomit. And sometimes my head spins. And a lot of things. I also [get] cold and fevers. So many kinds of problems I face during the hot day.”

Another garment worker, Mishti, said: I drink two to three times during the day and make sure to drink enough water when I return for lunch. However, it’s still not enough. I actually avoid drinking more water because of the workload. If I drink too much, I’ll need to use the washroom, which takes time. But I have to complete 150 pieces of work within an hour.”

Garment worker Raina was six months pregnant with her third child when she was first interviewed by CRI in May 2024.

The heat index in Dhaka that month rose above 38°C (about 100°F) on 23 of 31 days, never once falling below 32°C (about 90°F).

“My body is burning. But still there is no break at all. I have to complete [my] work … I am suffering [in the heat], but I have to do my job,” Raina told CRI.

Raina described the unbearable conditions inside the factory where she worked, sewing pockets onto hundreds of pairs of jeans each day.

She said that, even in the intense heat, she had no access to cooling systems and was given no additional breaks. Her daily production quota remained unchanged, she said.

“Once I fainted. It was the shock of the heat. The line chief and another worker took me to the toilet and my fellow worker put water on my head and gave me some time to lie down underneath the table. [But] there is no space to have a break, so I just lie down underneath the table. And after a little break, I started work again,” she told CRI.

Raina told the NGO: “The break time is the lunch period, and that break time is only one hour. And if the work continues after 5 p.m., there is no [additional] break. But sometimes, when my work is completed, then I can take a little break, and I can go to the toilet. So that’s it. Even when I work for 14 hours, there is no other break.”

President of the Bangladesh Apparel Workers Federation Towhidur Rahman told CRI: “In Bangladesh, we have commitments, we have protective policies for [formal sector] workers. But in practice, it’s not happening. Accountability is not happening.”

Ministry due to sign key conventions

CRI notes that Bangladesh’s Ministry of Labour is expected to sign key International Labour Organisation conventions on occupational health in the coming months (ones that the country had previously failed to ratify).

“Businesses and governments have an obligation to protect workers from the growing threat of extreme heat,” said Cara Schulte, author of the new CRI report.

“Employers and multinational corporations should work in tandem with the Bangladesh government to monitor heat safety, protect workers, and uphold their rights. Doing so will be critical to the future of public health, worker well-being, and the global economy.”