The Evolution and Present Day of Bangladesh

The Biggest Garment Industry Failure in Bangladesh

Rana Plaza

Bangladesh has always been one of the major names in the world’s garment business. Bangladesh is number 2 garment exporter, right after China. There are 6000 factories manufacturing goods and exporting them every year. 80% of the country’s export come from garment industry and it also dominates most of the economy of the country. The major garment buyers in Bangladesh are USA, UK, Entire Europe, and Australia and it also covers almost all the world. It has always been a pride for Bangladesh though there have always been tragic incidents tangled with the fact. Low wages, lack of safety, ignorance were always thrown upon garment workers both by national and international related organizations.

In 2013, 24 April the biggest tragic happened in the garment industry that shocked the whole world. It was Rana Plaza, a five storied garment factory situated in Savar, one of the major cities of Bangladesh. It was built by Mohammed Sohel Rana. Rana used to work locally for the MP of that area and was supported by him. This encouraged Rana to carry out one after another crime without giving any explanations. With the tons of illegal money he owned several lands. In 2006, Rana Plaza, the garment factory was built. With the help of political allies he made the permit to expand the building unto five floors, though it was not designed to be so. In 2013, 23rd april there were explosion sounds and huge cracks were noticed. Despite of the warnings of engineers Rana made workers work the next day. 24th april the building collapsed, it broke down taking all the workers with itself. 1100 people were killed and 2500 were injured. Nearby people came running, police, fire service but all of these were of no help. It was impossible to even move one brick. It took days after days to bring out the both the dead and alive people, people were crushed between concrete. This incident shocked workers, buyers, owners, associations, international organizations.

After the incident on wednesday Rana had been running and hiding in places. At last while trying to cross the indian border he was caught and the public cheered saying “hang Rana, hang Rana”. But the story does not end here. It continues with suffering of the people who made through the incident. Most of them have lost some of their body parts, unable to work and stunned with the shock.

Unfortunately, this was not the first garment tragic that took place. Since like forever some kinds of incidents keeps happening and it’s due to the lack of proper safety. After Rana plaza broke down US president Barak Obama declared the suspension of GSP for Bangladesh. This suspension was an act of protest by US due to the lack of Bangladesh’s government being reluctant about the worker’s rights and safety.

“I have determined that it is appropriate to suspend Bangladesh’s designation as a beneficiary developing country under the GSP program because it is not taking steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights,” US President Barack Obama said in a message to the Congress. Along with that US ambassador Dan W Mozena declared America’s unwillingness to buy products after this incident; “America will not buy shirts stained with the blood of Bangladeshi workers,” This created a huge impact over Bangladesh. People were upset over the fact that there was a lack of support from US. Though new rules were being set, still US was ready to help Bangladesh establishing strict laws in garment business.