A Tragedy Waiting to Happen

There are 4 million workers in Bangladesh who rely on the garments industry and in turn, multinational companies commission work from them to produce the ready-to-wear clothes that the  the western hemisphere displays on their stores all over the world. 

But the conditions of their workplace is so evidently lacking of structure and safety practices that in the nightmarish day a building collapsed wherein over a 1,000 workers are believed to have been crushed between dilapidated walls and concrete beams.  The screams were being heard, but the emergency response too overwhelming for the city officers.

The latest scandal on labor rights that have been a decade long stigma in developing countries. Cheap labor comes with their lives being gambled everyday;  cracked buildings that have not been renovated for years, long working house to meet the daily.  Cramped in small spaces with little ventilation, one is better off in a dog cage.  Most of these workers are women.

Just how much improvement these factories have put their effort in making their workers' conditions safer are still unknown. Had it not for the tragic incident that snuffed out thousands of lives ...many of them who are there to earn and feed their families, we will never know.  But amid-st the great tragedy, policies are being written well under way, Western buyers are demanding to change their working conditions as it violates basic human treatment.

And to say it dryly, they don't want to get bad publicity.

If you remember not so long ago, Nike's infamous sweatshops such as in Vietnam, China, Thailand, to name a few which saddled a lot of outcry because of low (and you didn't think it would go any lower  that it is) wages, poor working conditions and harassment from the factory operators who are , sad to say, their own kind.  

And when these disparities in wages, in benefits and the treatment are met with corporate responsibility, there wouldn't be lives lost, there wouldn't be a public outcry and maybe there will be a genuine economic growth of a country that truly deserves it.  They are not ranked number 2 in the world as top garment exporter for nothing.

The people do work hard, they work hard not only for themselves, but for the mouths they have to feed and the family they need to bring up and these are just a few motivational trademarks the Cambodians possess and that should not be put to waste. 

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