Hi you all! I'm not coming anymore to school, because I'm going to London, and I was supposed to do my speaking yesterday in class. But I thought it wouldn't interest you very much and that you wouldn't pay many attention to it, so we watched the movie instead. Anyway, I have put it here if someone wants to look at it. I hope you like it.
Tragedy in Bangladesh
Have you ever gone shopping to H&M, Mango, the Corte Inglés? These shops are everywhere, aren't they? They're famous, and they have a lot of costumers. But they aren't perfect; they are all, in part, responsible of this:
Maybe you've heard of it, although it happened in April, so you probably don't remember. And, before I explain it to you, I'll tell you a few things about Dhaka, the place where this factory was located.
Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh. It has a population of more than 12 million people, which makes it one of the most populated cities in the world.
It isn't like Spain. This is Third World, and life is difficult here. People have to accept any kind of job, in any conditions, to survive.
These are workers at a textile factory, very often in old buildings with no extinguishers and no emergency exits, and in not very good hygienic conditions. Some of them are twelve, fifteen, seventeen years old.
They spend TWELVE HOURS in front of a sewing machine, six days a week. And what do they earn? The MOST MISERABLE MINIMUM WAGE IN THE WORLD (in Spain the minimum wage is six hundred and forty-five euros a month; compare!).
Of course, these conditions attract many, many fashion firms, because it's cheaper to make their clothes there. El Corte Inglés, United Colours of Benetton, H&M, Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius... These are only some of the four thousand and five hundred textile brands that make their clothes in Bangladesh. Do they even know their working conditions?
What you see here is the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984. This textile factory was located in Rana Plaza, Dhaka, and over three thousand people were working there when it fell down in 24th April.
The day before, the workers complained about cracks in the walls of the building, but their bosses didn't listen to them and forced them to work. And they did it; they didn't want to lose their jobs. In Bangladesh it's very difficult to get one.
Suddenly, the building collapsed and, until now, the rescue teams have identified one thousand bodies. They have rescued two thousand and fifty hundred injured.
There are many people around the wrecks of the building searching for their sisters, their brothers, their parents... They're missing, buried somewhere under the mess. Will they find them alive... or dead?
Do you know where do your clothes come from? Probably, most of them were made in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China... By people with no rights, thousands of people that depend on a miserable wage to live.
What can we do about that? Stop buying clothes that are made in sweat shops (factories in which employees work long hours at low wages and under poor conditions)?
No. That's not the solution. Bangladesh's economy depends on its factories. If we don't buy the clothes they make, its economy will sink and thousands of people that work in the factories will be fired, and they will wander through the streets without any place to go or any food to eat.
I think that there are two things we can do: To buy local and to buy fair. There are many initiatives that you can find in the Internet about that.
In this page, for example, they inform you about different projects to fight sweatshops. They also tell you which brands you should choose for a responsible buy: http://www.sweatfree.org/shoppingguide
We, as consumers, have a very important roll in business, because we decide which things we buy and which things we don't buy. And, if we start buying fair, buying local, buying from brands that don't exploit their workers, we'll inspire other people and, finally, between all of us we can make this a better world.
Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh. It has a population of more than 12 million people, which makes it one of the most populated cities in the world.
It isn't like Spain. This is Third World, and life is difficult here. People have to accept any kind of job, in any conditions, to survive.
These are workers at a textile factory, very often in old buildings with no extinguishers and no emergency exits, and in not very good hygienic conditions. Some of them are twelve, fifteen, seventeen years old.
They spend TWELVE HOURS in front of a sewing machine, six days a week. And what do they earn? The MOST MISERABLE MINIMUM WAGE IN THE WORLD (in Spain the minimum wage is six hundred and forty-five euros a month; compare!).
Of course, these conditions attract many, many fashion firms, because it's cheaper to make their clothes there. El Corte Inglés, United Colours of Benetton, H&M, Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius... These are only some of the four thousand and five hundred textile brands that make their clothes in Bangladesh. Do they even know their working conditions?
What you see here is the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984. This textile factory was located in Rana Plaza, Dhaka, and over three thousand people were working there when it fell down in 24th April. The day before, the workers complained about cracks in the walls of the building, but their bosses didn't listen to them and forced them to work. And they did it; they didn't want to lose their jobs. In Bangladesh it's very difficult to get one.
Suddenly, the building collapsed and, until now, the rescue teams have identified one thousand bodies. They have rescued two thousand and fifty hundred injured.
There are many people around the wrecks of the building searching for their sisters, their brothers, their parents... They're missing, buried somewhere under the mess. Will they find them alive... or dead?
Do you know where do your clothes come from? Probably, most of them were made in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China... By people with no rights, thousands of people that depend on a miserable wage to live.
What can we do about that? Stop buying clothes that are made in sweat shops (factories in which employees work long hours at low wages and under poor conditions)?
No. That's not the solution. Bangladesh's economy depends on its factories. If we don't buy the clothes they make, its economy will sink and thousands of people that work in the factories will be fired, and they will wander through the streets without any place to go or any food to eat.
I think that there are two things we can do: To buy local and to buy fair. There are many initiatives that you can find in the Internet about that.
In this page, for example, they inform you about different projects to fight sweatshops. They also tell you which brands you should choose for a responsible buy: http://www.sweatfree.org/shoppingguide
We, as consumers, have a very important roll in business, because we decide which things we buy and which things we don't buy. And, if we start buying fair, buying local, buying from brands that don't exploit their workers, we'll inspire other people and, finally, between all of us we can make this a better world.
So... You choose. Do you want to do something about, or you prefer to turn a blind eye on it?
No comments:
Post a Comment