Bangladeshi employee has miscarriage in factory toilet

An employee at one of Bangladesh's largest footwear factories suffered a miscarriage in a workplace toilet after she was allegedly refused medical leave, police said Sunday.

Factory worker Hamida Akter, 20, had a miscarriage on Saturday after falling ill during a shift at the Apex Factory, which employs 6,300 people and supplies shoes to Western retailers, police said.

"She was rushed to a local hospital where the doctor declared the baby dead. The baby was about four months old," senior police officer Mahbub Hossain Kazal told AFP.

Since the incident was first reported in the mass-circulation Bengali daily Prothom Alo, Bangladesh's High Court had asked a government official to investigate, deputy attorney general Tapash Kumar Biswas said.

"The high court... (asked) the government administrator of the area to investigate the incident and submit a report. It also summoned three factory officials to appear at the court on May 24," he told AFP.

He said the factory representatives included managing director Syed Nasim Manzur and two others based at the factory in the industrial town of Kaliakoir, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the capital Dhaka.

Local media said Akter sought leave from one of the factory supervisors after she fell ill, but she was allegedly refused and asked to concentrate on her work.

Kazal said police were investigating the allegation..

Manzur, who is also one of the firm's owners, rejected the claim that the factory authorities denied the woman medical leave.

"She never revealed the fact that she was pregnant. There was no question that she was denied maternity leave," he told AFP, adding that the factory abided by Bangladeshi labour law and last year gave maternity leave to 168 workers.

"On Saturday, she complained that she was having abdominal pain because of menstrual cramps and she was treated by our doctor accordingly," he said.

According to its website, Apex Footwear won US department store Macy's "Five Star Award" for four consecutive years between 2010 to 2013 "in recognition of the continued support and outstanding service". It also supplies US chain J.C. Penney.

The incident has thrown the spotlight back on the appalling state of workers' rights in Bangladeshi factories, which have in recent years emerged as key suppliers to top retailers in Europe and North America.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in April 2013 triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US brands who had placed orders to improve the woeful pay and conditions in the country's 4,500 garment factories.

More than 1,100 people died in that incident, in what was one of the world's worst industrial disasters.