On Wednesday, 24th of April 2013 a tragedy happened that shocked the whole at the Rana Plaza in Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh. But before the event happened, the workers noticed cracks on the building walls which made them refuse to work in the unstable building. But workers were being blackmailed by paid gangs that they won't get paid, so the terrified worker had no choice but to go back in and work again as money was the biggest need for them.
The Rana Plaza was a clothing factory producing clothes for brands in MEDC such as America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The majority of the workers were women aged between 18-20 years’ old, who worked 14 hours a day. This is not just unsafe, but also unfair due to the horrible conduction that they had to work under. However, what made this saturation, even more, worse is Sohel Rana (owner of Rana Plaza) decided to illegally add 4 extra floors on top of their building (with cheap materials) without being authorized which made the structure of the building unsafe and eventually started to form the cracks. But when the illegal construction was done in 2007; It’s shocking how the government was not aware of such a huge change in the area which makes you wonder, if any money was exchanged.
On 24th of April, at 08:57 a.m. BST there was a power-cut before the vibration of the roof generators caused the building to crumble in as instant. 3,122 workers were imprisoned. Approximately 2,500 injured people. 1,129 worker’s death. This is a prime example of why we should stop unethical production in the industry. Thousands of innocent people who worked their ass off and lived and breathed in that disgusting environment died just because nobody thought about their action and no one was aware.
But, now walking in the 3rd year of the anniversary, the Garment industry is trying to improve the working conditions in and out of the factories prevent us from recreating that ugly part of history again! More and more companies such as H&M, ASOS, New Balances, GAP, etc.… are supporting the same values as the ETI base code and have made a vowel to help and ensure that factories are safer for workers. It’s great that the Garment industry is changing, but we need to ensure that they continue to do because if they don’t were back to square 1.
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