Labour rights activist Kalpona Akter and chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent reflect on where the industry stands a decade after the deadly factory collapse.
Background:
Ten years ago this week an eight-storey factory complex in an industrial suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people and injuring thousands of others.
The Rana Plaza disaster ranks as one of the worst industrial disasters on record. It shook the fashion industry, shining a spotlight on critical safety failings in major brands’ supply chains. In its wake, hundreds of brands signed a groundbreaking safety agreement that helped improve conditions in thousands of factories in Bangladesh, but elsewhere little has changed.
This week on the BoF Podcast, labour rights activist and founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Workers Solidarity Kalpona Akter reflects on where the industry stands a decade later, while BoF’s Imran Amed and chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent discuss what still needs to change.
“If you ask me then, ‘what did you achieve in the last ten years?’ I can say then only the improvement of safety,” says Akter. “The other areas of workers’ rights, like wages, it is still poor.”
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