On the Factory Floor, an Activist Is Born

"I still remember that cotton feeling in my mouth and just being so tired," she said, recalling how she once looked out the factory window and noticed wealthy children her age dressed in school uniforms and on their way to classes. "After that, it was something in me that snapped. I grew very angry."

After Akter held a successful protest demanding clean drinking water at a factory, union organizers took notice. She was only 15, but they liked her feisty personality and knew she was popular with other female workers. She told the union organizers she would help them -- but only if they paid for her to go to school part time.

"It was my dream to be a teacher," she said, adding that she has always loved talking, especially in front of an audience. "But I never thought I would end up leading a union."

Over the years, she has fought for maternity leave, medical benefits, and drinking and bathroom breaks for workers. She also led the charge to stop child labor in the factories, often naming and shaming those companies that hired those younger than 18.

"What's amazing is that Nazima Akter made it work. There's far less child labor now," said Ayesha Khanam, president of the Bangladesh Women's Council, a civil society group. "Nazima's message is that women don't have to have an appeasement policy toward men or their bosses. They can fight."

Akter has had her critics. She recalled being fired from various sewing jobs for being "difficult to work with, cranky and belligerent about poor conditions." But she was always rehired after staging public protests. Today, she is a full-time union organizer. She has traveled to the United States and Europe to meet with clothing companies to highlight work conditions.

"She's a force in Bangladesh. She's respected and also deeply feared, but in an important way," said SK Monowar Hossain, director of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association. The group represents 1,500 outlets, which contract with U.S. companies such as Gap, Target and Wal-Mart. "We have good contacts with her because she's honest and tells you exactly what she thinks."

At almost 10 p.m. in the neighborhood Akter visited on a recent night, women continued to travel home from factories on rickety bicycle rickshaws. They were seamstresses, textile cutters and sewing machine operators.

Akter, with her list of unionized garment workers, scrambled after them, following the women home, sometimes yelling at husbands to clean or cook and always asking about their problems at the factory.