Akter, aged 12, left school and started work in a garment factory to support her family.

[2] In the same year, the management of Akter's factory announced the workers would not receive overtime pay during Eid al-Fitr.

Through the AFL–CIO's Solidarity Center, they started working together with the newly founded Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation (BIGUF).

[2] In August 2000, Akter founded the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity together with Babul Akhter and Nazma Sheikh.

[2] In 2010, Akter was charged with inciting a riot and conspiring to set off an explosive device after garment workers had vandalised several factories, even though she had been thirty-five kilometres away from the events.

[2] The charges were dismissed after the US government had suspended its trade privileges with Bangladesh following the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013.