--Very tragic!! Could have been avoided. Sharing Farida's article from Bangladesh. In solidarity, Priti
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"Forced to die": Garment workers in Rana Plaza
Farida Akhter
Rana Plaza, the eight-storey building housing at least four garment factories in the building's third to eighth floor, collapsed on the morning of April 24, 2013. It was not just an accident. The day before, the inhabitants of the buildings saw large cracks developing in the building and the local engineers advised evacuation. Accordingly, the shops on the first floor and a private bank took measures for evacuation. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Association (BGMEA) warned the garment factory owners of the building and asked not to open the factory till they give clearance. The workers were asked to leave in the afternoon of 23rd April.
But next day, April 24th, the factory management (from third to eighth floor) asked the workers to return to work and threatened to sack or not pay the salary to those workers who would not come to work. The garment workers did not want to come. They were afraid that the building might collapse anytime. Fearing the threat of sacking or losing salary, in the morning, around 8:30 am, more than 70% workers (roughly 3,500), were inside the building. Majority of them were young girls. There was power cut (which is quite normal everyday), so the generators were on. The building trembled and within two minutes the building collapsed leaving no space to get out.
Sohel Rana, the owner of Rana Plaza is a close affiliate of a Member of Parliament TalukdarMurad Jong of ruling party Bangladesh Awami League, built the eight storey building obtaining the approval for only 5 storeys from the municipal authorities in 2008. He built the building without following any building code, flouting rules and abusing his political clout. There was none to monitor to see the safety of the thousands of workers working in this building.
Aoshi, a female worker rescued after 36 hours of the colapsesaid, "Work at the (garment) factory was stopped following discovery of a crack in the building. We were not supposed to come (to the work) following day. But we were asked to come and told that there will be no problem."
So it was not an accident, it was simply an organised killing. It can be termed a "Rana-made" killing of the readymade garment workers. As the factory is located in Savar, the suburb of Dhaka, the incident is called Savar Tragedy. Till today (April 28thafternoon) the death toll is 354, recorded as missing 1050and 2507 rescued live victims. Many are still trapped inside the rubble. Many of them are in hospitals. Some had amputated hands and legs. Traumatized and saddened by the death of their colleagues, those who are alive, are not able to talk normally. The dead bodies are collected in Odhor Chandra school building, the injured are receiving treatment in Enam Medical Hospital in Savar and in Dhaka hospitals.
The list of the missing is growing longer. The relatives of the victims are carrying photo identities or holding a paper with information of the workers while they are waiting to see those rescued, alive or dead. They have come from outside Dhaka only to find out their sons, daughters, husband, wife, mother etc. They are demanding at least the "dead body" of their dear ones and running from hospital to hospitals. "Give us at least the dead body, please so that we will have a grave" – demanded those who give up hopes of getting their relatives alive.
The victims are mostly young women (between 25 to years) most of them unmarried, newly married or are those having one or two kids in the age below 5 years. Mothers of the victims were there to look for their daughters; some of them were looking after the children of these working women.
The dead body of a young garment worker was found with a small piece of paper in her hand. She wrote, "Mama and papa, please forgive me. I will not be able to buy medicine for you anymore. Brother can you look after mama and papa"?
Another woman was crying for help from inside, "I have an infant baby, I have to breastfeed him. Please get me out for the child!"
These young women and men were all taking responsibilities of their families, so their deaths are disaster to the family leading the family to poverty.
Rescue operation
The Army, Fire Brigade, Red Crescent Volunteers and the local people have been conducting the rescue operation. In fact, the local people comprising of garment workers from other factories, students including students of madrashas, shop owners, day labors, masons, health workers, bricklayers, women and many others joined their hands to rescue the workers by risking their own lives. These ordinary people and firefighters played an extra-ordinary role by using shovels, handsaws, hammers and other handy tools. They were cutting the walls, grills and floor to pull the victims out of the debris. They did not have any protective gear wearing slippers, T-shirts, pajamas,, jeans or trousers. A few had plastic helmets, but no protective tools. These volunteers, mostly young people (25 to 30 years), had to rescue both the dead bodies as well as live victims. Those who were alive could not breathe properly because of the air stinking with stench coming from the dead bodies around that started decomposing. Every minute, the volunteers found out the sound of the cry for help from inside among the debris. With time running out to save those still trapped inside, rescuers dug through mangled metal and concrete finding more corpses.
The survivors were badly dehydrated in stifling humidity and temperatures reaching 35 C in the daytime and about 24 C overnight. Rescuers trying hard to make holes in the rubbles and send some dry food and water. No one knows whether they could get them. The ordinary people were coming to help with money, blood donation, food, water, torches for volunteers etc.
Once the victims are rescued, members of other agencies such as army took them to hospitals in ambulances. There are, however, complains from the families of the victims that the authorities were not using their maximum efforts with equipment whatever needed for such a rescue operation.
Apparel factories in Rana Plaza
The building housed five apparel factories. These are: Ether Tex Limited, New Wave Bottoms Limited, New Wave Style Limited, Phantom Apparels Limited, and Phantom Tac Limited, employing about 5000 workers. Several million shirts, pants and other garments were produced by the Apparel factories in the building per year.
The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for major brands including North American retailers The Children's Place and Dress Barn, Britain's Primark, Spain's Mango and Italy's Benetton. According to Ether Tex,'Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, was one of its customers'.
Canadian clothing line Joe Fresh parent company Loblawand other Western brands had some products made in the building.Loblaw promptly acknowledged its involvement in the plant, and said in the statement that it has vendor standards aimed at ensuring its products are made in a "socially responsible" way, but the company noted there are some gaps when it comes to building safety.
Primark, a major British clothing chain responded promptly in acknowledging that it produced garments in the collapsed factory.
Lack of safety standards
The Savar Tragedy is the worst ever for the country's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 and injured hundreds of workers and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards. Since then, very little has changed in Bangladesh, where low wages; $ 38.50 a month, have made it a magnet for numerous global brands and propelled the country to no. 2 in the ranks of apparel exporters.
The export-oriented readymade garment factories have been receiving cash incentives from the successive governments at least 1 billion Taka ($133 million) but failed to make many of the industries comply with the industry safety standards resulting in frequent fire accidents and losses of lives. Besides the cash incentives, the RMG sector is provided with easy loans and waiving their bank interests etc. Due to failure of the safety standards, there have been deaths of 730 workers (excluding that in Rana plaza) in the past 11 years in building collapses, fires and stampedes. None of the RMG owners were seen to be punished for their irresponsible acts, resulting in the tragic deaths of the poor women of Bangladesh. After every incident, the owners declare compensation to the families of the dead workers but hardly those are implemented properly. The injured workers have to live a handicapped life, and are not looked after by the factory management anymore. They are just "disposable workers".
Thousands of Readymade Garment workers from the hundreds of garment factories across the Savar industrial zone and other nearby areas took to the street on 25th April in different parts of Dhaka city to protest the poor safety standards in the workplaces. They demanded arrest of the building owner Sohel Rana and the factory owners who forced the workers to go into the building knowing about the threat of collapse. Workers blocked the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, Dhaka-Tangail highway and Dhaka-Gazipur Road. Another group of thousands of workers gathered in front of the Garment manufacturer's Association (BGMEA) building seeking the arrest and punishment of those responsible for the workers' death in Rana Plaza. They said"It's a pre-planned killing. Workers were forced to go and work in the building. We demand punishment for the garments and building owners".
Latest news is that the police arrested eight people in connection with Rana Plaza collapse in Savar. They have arrested the 3 owners including the Chairman of Phantom Apparel Limited and Phantom Tac Limited, the director of New Wave Bottom Limited and the chairman of New Wave Bottom Limited; two engineers of Savar Municipality on charge of playing down the danger from cracks that developed in the building on behalf of the owners. However, Sohel Rana, the owner of the building who is also the local leader of Jubo League, could not be traced.
Last words........
It is difficult to end the story of Savar tragedy. The garment workers are now scared of the buildings. Earlier, they were scared of the gates being locked as they could not get out in time of fire accidents. But they have to work. They have to earn their living by working and look after their families. Can't the workplaces be made safe for them? How much does it cost? How much the owners have to reduce their margin of profit to ensure safety of the workplaces? On the other hand, the international buyers talk about compliances but do not want to pay for ensuring the safety standards. It is not enough to campaign as "blood stained" Bangladeshi garments. We have to hold corporations responsible both at national and international level to ensure safety. Consumers in the western world can come forward to demand for safety standards to be met, but please do not campaign "stop buying" Bangladeshi clothes. The garment workers need the industry to earn their livelihood. This is the fundamental premise that should not be weakened or shattered. Such campaign goes to the advantage of the multinational corporations who will move from Bangladesh to other countries to repeat the same exploitation of the workers. Earlier campaigns of activists to promote products from least developed countries such as Bangladesh was not wrong, and we should continue the campaign despite this situation. However, we must now move away from the role of creating 'consumers' in the west to more politically engaged campaigns such as forcing the corporate world to be responsible for what happened in Bangladesh. The hands of everyone are stained with the blood of the workers. So every stakeholder must take responsibility.
[The information used in this article is from daily NewAGE, The Financial Express and few Bengali dailies. The interpretations are of the author]
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