Recently, the Rumor Scanner team has seen a claim circulating on the internet that about 12 countries, including the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, have stopped exporting garments/clothes from Bangladesh.

Check out some of the posts circulating on Facebook on the claim here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), here (archive)।

Watch the video circulating on YouTube making the same claim here (archive)।

Fact Check

According to the Rumor Scanner team’s investigation, the claim that about 12 countries including USA, Canada, Italy, Australia have stopped the export of clothes from Bangladesh is not correct rather according to the news of national daily Ajker Patrika, some countries have withdrawn the clothes from their market due to health risks, which were circulated in the said claim. Moreover, ‘Ajker Patrika’ mentioned the names of three countries claiming the withdrawal of clothes this year, which are not in this list.

At the beginning of the investigation into this matter, in the related posts, a news report was shown as the source. The news published in the print edition of the national daily ‘Ajker Patrika’ was titled, “Bangladesh clothing withdrawn in 12 countries (translated).”

The news was published (archive) as lead news in the print edition of the newspaper on November 5.

The Rumor Scanner team has read the entire report, the gist of which is that various brands of clothes manufactured in Bangladesh factories have been withdrawn from the market in 12 countries including the United States this year on the pretext of ‘health risks’. Recently, the Canadian government has asked the global chain shop Walmart to take back more than 216,000 clothes of the George brand made in the factory in Bangladesh.

On October 3, the Government of Canada published a notice in this regard on the official website of that country. The notice urges consumers to return these sold-out George brand clothing to Walmart. These George brand clothes for sale at Walmart are made in a factory called Unique Designers Limited in Gazipur.

‘Ajker Patrika’ contacted Unique Designers Limited about the defects in the dresses. Mizanur Rahman, manager of the human resource department of the company, says, “We have provided the quality and quality products that the Singapore-based buying house ‘PDS Far-East Ltd’ asked us to supply to Walmart in Canada. If there is any problem here, it can be ‘PDS’, here we have no responsibility.’

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an organization that provides economic and socio-economic policy support to more than 100 countries in the world, apart from Canada, regulatory bodies have forced the removal of clothes made in Bangladesh factories from the market in 11 countries in 2023.

Quoting OECD data, ‘Ajker Patrika’ wrote, the complaints brought against the Bangladeshi-made clothes by the regulatory bodies of different countries in the world include the danger of suffocation and injury due to wearing the clothes, the risk of exposure to fire due to looseness, the presence of excessive chemicals in the clothes, fire. Uncertainty of resistive value etc.

Read the report published on the website of ‘Ajker Patrika’ here. However, the report has already been removed from the website.

Moreover, the list of some media outlets that published the same news on that day are Daily Inqilab, Zoom Bangla, Dhaka Prokash.

‘Ajker Patrika’ and other related reports highlighted the fact that some countries have withdrawn Bangladeshi-made clothes, but no information was found in the reports that the export of Bangladeshi-made clothes has been stopped.

The Rumor Scanner team later decided to verify the information mentioned in the ‘Ajker Patrika’ report.

The information mentioned in the news of ‘Ajker Patrika’ is found to be similar to the notice published by the Government of Canada on October 3.

That being said, Health Canada said on its website that George Brand’s nightgowns may break zipper extensions and the leg and neck grips may be compressed by repeated washing, creating a suffocation situation for the wearer.

However, the notice also mentions that the company has not received any complaints from customers regarding the clothes till September 21. This information, however, did not mention ‘Ajker Patrika’.

BGMEA president Faruque Hassan says the accused clothes were sent in early 2022. The clothes were sold from November of that year to June of this year, according to the Canadian government notice.

Quoting BGMEA, BBC Bangla reports that the brand companies have also paid the price of these clothes.

The slippers are manufactured by a company called Unique Designers Limited of Bangladesh.

The company’s managing director Syed Farid Ahmed told BBC Bangla, “Walmart has not stopped giving us orders. Our factory is in production. But this time they are asking us to put a different kind of zipper, which is what we are doing.”

According to BGMEA, customers provide all the details of the product while placing the order and the product is manufactured accordingly. After the sample is sent, then its approval, the goods are shipped. The order may be canceled if the product is not shipped as per the sample. As a result, Bangladeshi factories have no responsibility in this case.

They claim that when the product goes abroad from Bangladesh, it is sent after passing all the standards and after the final approval of the buyers.

In other words, Bangladeshi factories are not responsible for the clothes that are claimed to have been withdrawn in Canada. No customer has complained about these clothes. In addition, the price of clothing has also been settled to the factory in Bangladesh

Through a filtering search on the OECD website, it is known that until this fact check report was published, there have been cases of withdrawal of clothes made by Bangladesh from 10 countries this year. The list includes Slovakia, Lithuania (1, 2), Australia, Bulgaria, Italy (1, 2), Austria, United States and Cyprus.

On the contrary, the 12 countries mentioned by ‘Ajker Patrika’ on the same source are Slovakia, Lithuania, Australia, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, United States, Cyprus, Canada, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia. But the OECD list does not include Canada, Poland, Estonia, Slovenia, which ‘Ajker Patrika’ points out.

However, we have mentioned above the information regarding the clothing recall on the Canadian government website. Apart from this, among the rest of the countries, Poland’s name is mentioned in the 2021 list.

That is, ‘Ajker Patrika’ has mentioned the names of three countries which are not in this list to demand the withdrawal of clothes this year.

Moreover, the 10 countries named in this year’s list of the OECD have had the same situation as Canada. The factories concerned in Bangladesh have no responsibility in these incidents. No customer has complained about these clothes.

According to OECD data, Ajker Patrika reported four such incidents in 2022 and five in 2021. The truth of the matter has been confirmed by visiting the OECD website.
This phenomenon is neither new nor unique to Bangladesh. In developed countries, regulatory bodies often order the withdrawal of various garments and products from the market for various reasons. In the past, there have been examples of removing clothes, cosmetic products imported from different countries in the US and European markets. The OECD’s website lists incidents involving various countries.

Bottom Line

Rumor Scanner team has seen a claim that about 12 countries including United States, Canada, Italy, Australia have stopped the export of clothes from Bangladesh recently about national daily Ajker Patrika. But the Rumor Scanner team has found that there is no mention of this news in ‘Ajker Patrika’ or any other media about the stoppage of clothing exports. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), known as the global platform for product recalls has reported that 10 countries have recalled clothing from their markets this year due to health risks. Apart from this, the Canadian government has also reported such incidents in their country. But ‘Ajker Patrika’ has named three more countries outside this list which are not on this list to demand the withdrawal of the clothes this year. Moreover, as these clothes were withdrawn from the market after export, the respective garment factory is not responsible for this incident and the factory has not stopped the production of clothes from the respective countries, said BGMEA. Even no customer complained about these clothes. Some clothes sent from Bangladesh to different countries have been ordered to be withdrawn from the market due to health risks.

Therefore, the fact that some clothes exported by Bangladesh have been withdrawn from the markets of some countries due to health risks has been circulated on the Internet with the claim that 12 countries have stopped exporting clothes from Bangladesh; Which is misleading.