Bangladesh's parliament has extended maternity benefits from 112 to 120 days for eligible workers, but for millions of women in the country's vast ready-made garment sector — which employs around 4.5 million people, over half of them women, and generates more than $36 billion in annual exports — the greater challenge arrives when leave ends and long shifts of up to 14 hours resume. Workers interviewed in the factory hubs of Gazipur and Savar described piecing together childcare from grandmothers, paid caregivers and older siblings, while legally mandated on-site daycare facilities often lacked the capacity or staffing to be genuinely usable. The situation mirrors patterns across the wider garment industry in Asia, with similar shortfalls documented in Vietnam and Cambodia, pointing to a structural gap between formal workplace protections and the daily realities facing low-income mothers who underpin global fashion supply chains.