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Assignment 3
There are hundreds of people giving up their lives every year to make others look pretty. Factory workers of Bangladesh are forced to work in order to support their family with a very small amount of money. They make tons of clothes for European and Western companies which are exported every single week. The European and western companies have high demand because they want to capture the resent fashion trends, known as fast fashion. It is brutal to see the condition of the factories where there is not enough space for the workers to even move properly, no ventilation, and no sanitation system. But the biggest issue of all is the low wages. All these situations have been said to be improved, yet nothing has changed, and many lives are being sacrificed every year. So, before buying that piece of cloth made from a developing country, we should rethink if money is more important than someone’s life. Is it okay for an educated businessman to continue pushing the workers to the brink of death to make profit? European and Western companies should stop importing clothes from Bangladesh because of the terrible conditions garment industry workers are laboring in.
The unsafe condition of the factories is not a recent issue, this has been going on since the garment companies started doing business with this developing country. Bangladesh is my home country and I have seen the situation of the factories ever since I was very little. It is a type of country where if you open the news, all you will hear about is people trying to protest for their rights and safety. Because of the greed and corruption of the government and the other countries on which Bangladeshis depend on, nothing has changed. Fast fashion a kind of fashion trend which keeps changing quickly with time. People are used to this fast fashion trend that most of the time they do not think where and in what condition the clothes that are being worn is made. We buy something for two dollars or three, throw it out after couple days, then buy a new one. But there are many things going on behind that cheap piece of clothe. European and western companies have high demand of clothing to be made from developing countries and every year they are rising the amount. Bangladesh is a very cheap country to make clothes from because of having low maintenance of the factories and low wage for the workers, which is only $37 a month. Bangladesh is also known as the second largest exporter of garments in the world with four million workers in over 5000 factories (Rubya 686). Altogether, for the merchandise companies, Walmart, Gap, and H&M, Bangladesh is the perfect place to import their clothing from, but on the other hand it is cruel and inhuman to import clothes from a place where the workers, the main source behind making these clothing, are not been taken care of.
Lack of safety in Bangladesh is not a recent news. For years, safety has been a huge problem in Bangladesh’s garment factories. In 2005, the collapse of Spectrum Sweater Factory killed 64 workers, which is nothing compared to the biggest catastrophe that happened later on. People needed to be more concerned about the safety of the factory, but this did not ring bell for any improvements at all. The biggest collapse occurred on 2013 at the Rana Plaza factory near Dhaka which killed 1,129 workers. This is known as one of the worst disaster in garment industry history. A few months before this incidence, 112 workers lost their lives in the Tazreen Fashions Fire (Greenhouse and Harris, pars. 1-2). These types of incidents have been happening since the beginning of the innovation of the factories which killed thousands of workers, “Since 2005, over 1,800 workers have died in Bangladesh RMG industry due to preventable building collapses and factory fires” (Caleca 290). One of the main reasons why textile industries want clothes to be imported from Bangladesh is because they don’t need to worry about the maintenance check of these factories. The managers or supervisors are the ones who are in charge, and most of the times, they ignore the inspection and maintenance of the factories on which the safety of the workers depend on. As long as they are getting paid big amount of money, they don’t seem to be caring about anything else. As mentioned before, the Rana Plaza collapse was one of the biggest fire that occur in the history of Bangladesh garment history. To fulfill the demand of the textile companies, the factories hire lots of workers every year as well as get lots of machines which are very heavy. To make more money, the owner of the building Sohel Rana illegally constructed two additional floors (Rubya 686). According to a study done by Bangladesh University of Technology, the capacity of the structure of the building was too low to hold on to those many workers. The building was also overloaded with generators, boilers, garment machinery as well as garments and raw materials. Also, the land itself was “swampy with shallow water” (Rubay 690). During the Tazreen Fashions fire, 112 people lost their lives and the main reason behind this fire starting was from an illegal warehouse on the ground floor of the factory. This building was made with only three narrow dark staircases with no backup source of electricity (Caleca 291). Why should big companies continue importing clothing from a developing country if they cannot take care of the safety situation of the workers? European and Western companies should stop importing cloths from Bangladesh until they actually take the right steps to bring improvements to the factories.
Every year, people from villages of Bangladesh move to the city to work at the factories. Their lives and family depend on these factories where the merchandise brands are creating jobs every day. It is the factories and the international clothing company’s responsibility to take care of the workers which is constantly being ignored. The article written by New York Times European editor Jim Yardley contradicts this by saying, “While the Rana Plaza disaster… shamed many international clothing companies into pledging to help finance safety improvements in other Bangladeshi factories – the people most directly affected are still living without any guarantees of help or financial compensation” (para. 5). The Rana Plaza collapse has harmed a lot of people physical, financially and mentally. Workers who have been severely injured or have lost members of their family are going through hard times. They are going without a job or money and the government is trying to avoid taking any responsibility for this situation and their care. Families are given a onetime payment of $257, which is not enough comparing to the expenses (Yardley, para. 14).
The workers make a very little amount of money compared to the amount of money the textile industries make. The fact about a developing country is that people who are in extreme poverty are willing to do anything to make a little amount of money. They do not care about the working condition and risk their lives, which the government and the textile companies are taking advantage of. Knowing these facts about the workers’ mentality and the situation of the factories, textile companies should stop importing clothes from Bangladesh.
One other advantage being taken by the government is Child labor. Since there are no rules for child labor in Bangladesh, families are sending their children to work at the factories to make some extra money. But most of the times they are being sent to work with dangerous machines to take care of the injured family. According to the writer Michale E. Nielsen the estimate rage for child workers at the factories at in between 50,000 to 100,000 (565). This overload from the company’s demand and the poor family income make the children start working at their early ages instead of getting an education because often they are left with no other option rather than taking responsibilities. According to Nielsen, Bangladeshi government believe because of having large number of children working at the factories, if the child labor is banned, the country will go into poverty (566). Even though most of the children are under the age of 14, they are being treated the same way as adult workers, working 10-14 hours a day without any break. Because the number of working hours, sometime women workers brig their children to work and according to Neilsen, “…the owner kindly allows [encourages] the children [of the women workers] to earn some money by helping out.” (566). This gives a reason why the textile company should avoid importing clothes because it is taking education away from
the children of Bangladesh.Even though there are a lot of cons about importing clothes from Bangladesh, some disagree with this. Lots of people, including the government of the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself wants the clothes to be exported from Bangladesh. The main reason behind that is money. The economic situation of Bangladesh is not in a good position comparing to other developing country such as China, India or Pakistan. This is why the Prime Minister is willing to make any decision to earn some money for the advancement of the country. She is the one responsible for making sure that the workers from her country are being treated well. Instead, she worries that asking more to the textile companies will make them do business with other developing countries. This might cause a lot of economic damage to the country. Mostly, she does not worry much about the condition of the working situation, the safety of the workers or the economic situation they are going through. For her, receiving financial benefit from European and Western company seems to be more important. Looking at Figure 1, a picture taken by Zakir Hussain Chowdhury, Bangladeshi government should ask themselves is it worth sacrificing worker’s lives for business? Because of the government’s ignorance, textile companies are taking advantage of the workers as well since their protest for safety has always been left behind. No matter how many rules are being made or laws are being passed, at the end, those are never bringing followed. The workers are not being taken care of who is the one responsible to make clothing for the advanced countries.
European and Western companies should stop importing clothes from Bangladesh because of the situation the workers are going through which has never been improved. Importing clothes from Bangladesh is only bringing harm to a country like Bangladesh who is trying to develop since the beginning of its independence. People of Bangladesh are losing hope because of the ignorance and pressure from the European and Western companies. The working condition is not improving, but it is getting worse because no one takes this situation seriously. The wage is very low as well as the safety condition. However, it is not possible to bring improvement to the working condition anytime sooner since every law ever made about this issue was totally ignored. So, it is better if the textile industries avoid importing clothes from Bangladesh until the Bangladeshi government make and enforce more laws and make the factories to spend more money on safety, or until the government make a low for minimum wage. If the textile companies still want to get clothes delivered from Bangladesh, they need to take steps to spend more time on improving the poor communities as well as take care of the maintenance of the factories for the workers to work in a safe and sound condition.
