BY CIARAN SNEDDON (MP)

 

A young mechanic called Omar Babu made headlines in April for rescuing more than 30 people trapped in the wreckage of a fallen factory. When the rescue efforts ended, he checked into a hospital. He hanged himself in a bathroom shortly afterward.

 

A 27-year-old teacher, Faizul Muhid, also rummaged through the rubble to find survivors. He then went on to a high school where bodies were being left for relatives to find. He searched the rotting corpses for anything that could lead to their identification: phones, wallets, scraps of paper. He found himself having to fight off a pack of dogs that had managed to get hold of an unzipped bodybag, with a body inside. He now wanders the streets, redundant and mentally unstable.

 

 

"We've learned nothing, and done nothing."

 

Over 1,000 people died in the collapse of a Bangladeshi factory in April, and even more have since struggled with the memories and psychological damage the disaster caused. In the following weeks, MPs were fighting for the chance to ‘strongly condemn’ the lack of safety precautions in the building, or campaigning for high street retailers to do more to protect the workers. Since then, like most news stories, it fell backwards through the pages of newspapers, until it was completely gone from any media in the western world.

 

We’ve learned nothing, and done nothing. The attention of the world’s press – or should I say, the western world’s press – is now focused on New York Fashion Week. This high-end showcase of designer clothing is building on society’s view that clothing is important; indeed, so important that it’s worth losing lives over.

 

Ineke Zeldenrust of the Clean Clothes campaign, a group which lobbies for improvements in the safeguards surrounding garment makers, says that the companies who make so much money from their constant stream of clothes should be helping workers more.

 

“It is time that all brands linked to the tragedies step up and take financial responsibility for a disaster that they failed to prevent.”

 Workers are simply ignored, according to Judy Gearhart of the International Labor Rights forum.

 

“The workers of that factory were trapped into a cycle of poverty and debt and forced to choose between losing desperately needed income and their own safety. Many workers knew it was unsafe and some even asked managers if they could shut down for the day, but quick turnaround and on-time delivery are critical demands from apparel brands.”

 

Our need for clothing is unstoppable, be it cheap high street brands or the likes of Victoria Beckham’s latest range. There is an insatiable appetite for new looks for each of our entirely fabricated and ridiculous clothing ‘seasons’.

 

Primark, just one of the retailers that sells clothes made in the factories of Bangladesh, announced a 24% jump in sales this year, and yet didn’t ensure that the safety requirements were being met for its workers. They should be doing more, as should every other company making profits from cheap, unsafe labour. There shouldn’t be any companies capitalising on unfair treatment of staff.

 

It is easy, however, to put the blame solely on Primark and its fellow high street shops for the disaster in Bangladesh. It is harder to realise it is us who is to blame.

 

We choose to pay attention to the flashing lights of a fashion show because it’s a much nicer image than the deep darkness of a trapped worker in a collapsed building. We create the demand for £3 T-shirts and £10 trousers, because apparently we require new clothes each week.

 

We often complain about the state of our society, without realising it is us who create it. We can choose to put back an under-priced T-shirt on the shelf, but those faced by death or working in unsafe factories don’t have that same choice. It seems we don’t care about what others have to go through, just so long as we get the season’s hottest outfit.