Last week Rana Plaza, a garment factory in a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed, leaving 377 workers dead and hundreds still missing. Family members waited outside, hoping that rescue workers would find loved ones who had not made it out on time; the disaster is the largest in the garment industry’s history. Many of those saved were forced to endure painful amputations on site in order to escape. Sohel Rana, the owner of the factory was found hiding near the Indian border and arrested. The day before the accident, cracks had been found at the side of the structure, but Rana had assured owners that the building was safe to operate. This disaster comes just 5 months after the Tazreen Fashions factory collapsed, killing 112. Bangladeshis are livid and went on a violent protest through the city smashing cars and setting fire to two other factories.
The five factories in the plaza produced merchandise for JC Penney, Cato Fashions, Benetton and others. Although these incidents often feel so removed from our lives, the realization that we are the ones buying, and therefore supporting, these factories is one that we should give great consideration to. When we go shopping and wade through the racks of clothing perfectly prepared for us, we do not consider where these have come from and what conditions the workers must live through. The inability of these large stores to maintain minimum safety standards in the workplace is both sad and surprising. If they care about the customer, perhaps they should give thought to the worker as well. It is odd how such seemingly removed incidents can have such a direct affect on our lives in ways that we do not expect. For young workers to have to endure amputation and missing family members just for our commercial clothing business is horrifying and makes shopping, which is often part of a regular day for us, mean so much more. On behalf of all the writers at Her Campus Brown, we extend our sympathy to all the workers at Rana Plaza and their families.
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04…