At the beginning of May, the Bangladesh government and shrimp exporters strongly protested an American labour group claims of widespread violation of workers'' rights in the country''s processing plants, terming them ''false'' and ''misleading''.
The claims by the powerful US labour group AFL-CIO and its associate 'Solidarity Center' was aired recently by CNN, accusing the exporters of employing child labour and abusing labour rights in the shrimp processing plants.
"It's false, misleading and based on outdated information," the Bangladesh Frozen Food Exporters Association (BFFEA) said in a strongly worded protest.
"The government will send a rejoinder through the Bangladesh embassy in the United States," commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman told an inter-ministerial meeting.
The adviser held the inter-ministerial meeting after the CNN report, 'the true cost of shrimp' cast Bangladesh's second export earning sector in a negative light, with exporters expressing worries over its potential fallout.
Last year the country earned more than $515 million by exporting frozen food, which mostly included processed shrimp. The United States is the single biggest market of Bangladeshi prawn and lobster.
Commerce adviser said they have invited representatives from the US embassy and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to visit the plants and find out whether the claims are 'factual'.
Officials said the government has now decided to send a comprehensive report to the relevant US organizations on the prevailing labour situation in the shrimp processing plants before June 30.
BSFF chairman Syed Mahmudul Huq said the CNN report was based on outdated information.
"Since September, we have carried out major improvement in the sector, which the report did not reflect. We can now say that there is no existence of child labour in the frozen food sector," he said.
In a statement, the BFFEA, which includes 157 processing plants and their owners, said it investigated the claims by Solidarity Center that there is existence of child labour in 20 processing plants.
