“SA 8000 Introduction and Basic Auditor Course” has been held in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dhrubo Sen, Staff Correspondent : 5 day long SA 8000 Introduction and Basic Auditor Course has been held at the conference hall of TUV SUD Dhaka office located at Uttara, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The course has been facilitated by the New York based International organization “Social Accountability International” and TUV SUD Bangladesh is hosting the training.

Mr. Abdul Alim, the most experienced social compliance practitioner and human rights activist was the Lead Trainer for the training course.

Lead trainer and Bangladesh Representative of SAI talks at the end of the course with The RMG Times representative. He said, Social Accountability International (SAI) is the nonprofit organization working for the human rights at work. SA 8000 is the first auditable standard of the world established by the Social Accountability International (SAI).

Mr. Alim said, Bangladesh is one of the largest apparels producer country of the world but the consumers and the brands are not yet completely satisfied with social accountability and the health and safety status of the factories in Bangladesh. It is a huge challenge for Bangladesh to meet the increasing demand of compliant factories to export garments to EU and US brands as the brands will not take any risk to their brand image to produce their products in a non compliant factory. To meet the international standard requirement in the factories, Bangladesh needs more capable compliance professionals. SAI is putting their efforts to create local experts of compliance by organizing this type of auditor courses who can play different roles of compliance in the garment and other factories.

He added that from 2003 SAI is facilitating such Social Accountability Auditor Training which added a huge value to create local auditors instead the auditors used to come from abroad to conduct different Code of Conduct audits for the facilities. SAI charge the lowest fees for Bangladesh for This course comparing other countries to make it affordable for the potential delegates.

There is a delegate from a German brand said during the feedback session after the course that the 5 day of the course was very interesting and added value for him which can be very helpful for responsible sourcing for the brand.

There were 17 delegates from Bank, Garment factories, Brands, Bangladesh Accord, Buying houses, Embassy and other sectors.

Mr. Alim said that there were about 3200 of organizations are certified to SA 8000 standard worldwide where crores of employees are working. This is the only standard which has ensured the Basic Living wage for the employees worked in any organization, Mr. Alim added.

Mr. Alim said that SAI keeps 2 seats reserved for the NGO and Trade union activists for free to attend which makes this training different from others.