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The downward pressure on suppliers to produce low-cost clothes in unsafe conditions was exposed tragically in 2013, in the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh.
According to the UK government:
"Bangladesh’s ready-made garments sector accounts for 80% of the country’s exports and employs over 4 million people, nearly three-quarters of whom are women. It is estimated that the garment industry supports a further 25 million people and has played a pivotal role in the country’s development." (source)
The Rana Plaza factory collapse occurred in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 24 April 2013. Five garment factories were housed in the building.
Cracks began to appear in the building the day before the collapse, and other businesses located in the complex sent their workers home, but the garment factories were ordered to stay open by management.
A total of 1127 garment workers were killed in the collapse, with over 2500 injured.
The rescue operation took 17 days.
Many major brands and retailers were discovered to be manufacturing there, from luxury brands such as Prada and Gucci, to mass-market brands such as Primark and Walmart.
In Bangladesh there have been at least four fatal garment factory fires since 2010: reported here and here.
Since the Rana Plaza collapse, engineers surveying other Bangladeshi factories reported that sixty per cent of a surveyed 600 factories are vulnerable to collapse.
Getty Images (source)
Now time has passed, how much has changed? Clean Clothes Campaign provides a summary of the developments over the past decade here.
In 2020, a US Senate report released an update on the situation in Bangladesh's garment industry since Rana Plaza. It found that while safety standards had improved, worker welfare had not. You can read the full report here.
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