Kalpona Akter is the founder and executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), where she campaigns for worker safety, fair wages and the right to labour unions. Akter has been a key player in urging Western brands to sign on to the Bangladesh Safety Accord following the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 and her US Congress testimony helped frame legislation against slave-labour conditions for clothing.

She began working at garment factories in her native Bangladesh aged 12, and since 2000 has devoted herself to trade unions and activism for 4 million textile and garment workers in the country, becoming a target for factory owners and the country’s politicians. While international pressure has helped lessen the dangers, in 2012 unknown assailants abducted, tortured and killed Akter’s colleague and labour union organiser Aminul Islam.