Dhaka Garment Factory Collapse Disaster

Praying today for all those affected by the Dhaka disaster in a collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh.




Extract from Guardian Report below ..

Hundreds of garment workers employed in factories that supplied high-street shops in the west, including Primark, the discount clothing store, are feared dead after an eight-storey building collapsed on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on Wednesday.

Officials said the death toll had topped 160 by Thursday morning and 2,000 people had been rescued from the ruins.
One rescue worker said about 2,000 people were working on the upper floors of the factory, the Rana Plaza in the suburb of Savar, when the collapse occurred at about 9am on Wednesday, just after work had started for the day. He added that about 1,000 had been pulled from the rubble. Other estimates for the number of workers in the building as a whole were as high as 5,000.


A War on Want report revealed last year that the vast majority of garments from Bangladesh sold in British stores such as Primark (whose profits rose to £3.8bn this year) are made by women aged 18-32 who struggle to survive amid poor pay and working conditions.
 Sewing operators' pay is approximately £32 (3,861 taka) a month and the women interviewed cited their average household spending on basic needs such as food, housing and education for their children at around £68 (8,896 taka) a month.

Anna McMullen, campaigns coordinator at Labour Behind the Label, said in a recent interview: "Multinational corporations, which exercise more power than many governments and make increasingly large profits, have the responsibility to ensure human rights are upheld for people who produce and sell their goods. 

The right to decent wages in the fashion industry is systematically abused both here and abroad. It is the scandal of our times."

This reflection from i Bendictines poses sobering questions of social justice.

 Click here to read  "Easy Questions Difficult Answers."
  
and related articles here. and here.

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