Rana Plaza trauma haunts workers a decade later

As a younger reporter in Bangladesh, I’ll always remember getting the decision from my newsroom on the morning on April 24, 2013, to hurry over to the outskirts of Dhaka.

Once I arrived on web site at Rana Plaza — one of many many garment factories using hundreds of employees — I got here to see one thing that I might by no means think about. The flooring of a nine-storey constructing had collapsed and screams had been coming from the rubble.

I couldn’t instantly sense that I used to be witnessing one of many worst industrial disasters in historical past, stunning the world, particularly the international locations like Canada that imported large quantities of Bangladesh-made clothes.

With tears and disbelief in regards to the magnitude of the catastrophe, I gave updates to my newsroom. However I couldn’t simply return residence. This was not simply any story. I rushed to my college to assist arrange blood donations; it was the least I might do at that second.

The tragedy that killed greater than 1000 folks and disabled over 2500 nonetheless has haunted me ever since.

Since I got here to work in Canada as a journalist, I often go to branded clothes shops. Wherever I am going, I attempt to test the clothes to search out out the place it was made. Each time I see the phrase “Bangladesh,” it jogs my memory of the unlucky employees whose blood and sacrifices had been used to create this “Made in Bangladesh” label.

After that incident, the world’s consideration was drawn to some longstanding points, resembling employees’ well being, security and wages.

There have been some efforts undertaken to enhance their state of affairs, however nonetheless the clothes employees in Bangladesh stays among the many least paid on the earth. These “poverty-level wages” had been flagged by the Canadian Labour Congress and United Steelworkers of their current transient final November to the federal Canadian Ombudsperson for Accountable Enterprise, which is meant to watch human rights abuses by Canadian corporations overseas.

Regardless of being the second-largest provider of ready-made attire to Canada, Bangladesh’s minimal wage is barely one-third that of China. In keeping with Statistics Canada, even employees in Vietnam and Cambodia earn twice as a lot as these in Bangladesh.

Equally distressing, the garment employees in Bangladesh are nonetheless frightened about their security.

I lately obtained a survey of the Rana Plaza survivors carried out by worldwide NGO Motion Help Bangladesh, which wsa launched to mark the tenth anniversary of the tragedy.

Sixty per cent of them suppose nonetheless there exists dangers at their office and a couple of third of them remained traumatized. Solely 7.5 per cent of them had been in ok form to return to work.

The Canadian authorities must do extra to ensure corporations working in Bangladesh are pushing for the absolute best wages and security for the employees making our garments — not the most affordable doable options that put lives in danger.

There should be extra monitoring to ensure Canadian corporations and their Bangladesh suppliers meet worldwide requirements of security.

However customers even have a key position. We can’t solely care about worth: we have to take accountability for our purchasing choices

Again residence, I nonetheless have acquaintances and even kinfolk who work in garment factories. By them, I’ve discovered about their present working circumstances and the fears they face.

Everybody wonders: not if however when and the place will the subsequent Rana Plaza be?

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