Indian garment workers make about 39 rupees an hour ($2.27) , while Bangladeshi garment workers make only 28 taka an hour ($0.95).
85% of South Asian garment workers are women, who live paycheck to paycheck and often have to pay off dowry money and other debts, as they are reliant on men in their households for survival. In addition, labor laws protecting children from working in sweatshops are
not enforced and countless children are forced to sacrifice their education to support their family and work in unsafe conditions for up to 16 hours a day.
Overpopulation is a major issue in South Asia, and fast fashion companies purposely exploit this to create as many factories in these dense areas for profit.
They actively benefit off the poverty that comes with a large popuation.
Image taken from Al Jazeera. Image taken from World Vision UK.
In 2013, the Rana Plaza factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed due to negligence in safety and building standards. This resulted in the deaths of 1,134 workers and left more than 2,500 injured or disabled, marking the collapse as one of the worst factory accidents in history. While this was the main incident to make headlines internationally, it is unfortunately one of many accidents that occur in India and Bangladesh due to a lack of regard or regulations that protect garment workers' lives. Buildings are rarely maintained to safety code and the overpopulation of these sweatshops due to a greater need for laborers has lead to frequent heat strokes, lack of safe emergency exits and permanent health complications from dangerous chemicals within the sweatshop.
Image taken from The New York Times.
Because fast fashion companies can produce clothes in South Asia at a cheap cost, their products tend to be highly affordable but not made to last. As a result, consumers buy clothing far more often than they need and
85% of all textiles bought in the United States end up in landfills or burned.
Fashion is also the second largest consumer of the world's water supply, as it can take 2,700 liters of water to
make one cotton shirt! The high demand that comes with fast fashion products and a constant need to produce is disasterously wasteful of our resources and harmful to our environment.
Image taken from The New York Times.
Recently, companies such as Fashion Nova, Forever 21 and Kohl’s have been neglecting to pay for the products they ordered from Bangladeshi production factories that have halted production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to Bangladeshi garment workers going unpaid for months and being unable to pay rent or purchase basic necessities such as food, causing mass starvation, homelessness and deaths of poor laborers. This injustice of late-stage capitalism cannot go unnoticed.
By urging these companies to #PayUp Bangladesh workers for what they owe them and withdrawing economic support until they do so, we have the power to provide the pandemic relief and justice that these workers deserve.
Image taken from Remake.