A long collapsed building, lifeless and dusty bodies, maimed for life: on April 24, 2013, the collapse of an eight-storey building in Savar, west of Dhaka, Bangladesh, killed 1,138 people and injured more than 2,000.

Rana Plaza housed garment factories for various major Western clothing brands, such as Mango, Benetton, Walmart, Auchan, C&A or Carrefour. The building was cracked and in danger of collapsing at any moment, but the workers had to work there despite the obvious danger, in the name of productivity.

The images of Rana Plaza and its workers who died making clothes for the general Western public stirred international opinion and raised awareness. The West has discovered with horror the excesses of fast fashion and the deplorable working conditions of the four million workers in Bangladesh, the world's number two textile industry.

The Rana Plaza site after the collapse of the building in April 2013, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. © A.M. Ahad, AP (archive)

"All I want is justice"

While ten long years have passed, the trauma of the tragedy is still present for the survivors and the families of the victims. More than 2,000 people have emerged alive from the disaster, but many are suffering profound physical and psychological scars.

"We are alive, but we are dying slowly," said Sumi Akhter, a former worker at Rana Plaza, who had hesitated on the day of the tragedy to go to work, fearing that the cracked building would collapse. Amputated leg, she never found a job and received one million takas (about 8,500 euros) in compensation. But, according to her, her medical expenses and loss of income exceed this amount. "All I want is justice," she said.

According to a study by ActionAid Bangladesh, nearly 55% of survivors are currently unemployed.

"Some survivors beg to live. Our main demand is that all receive fair compensation for their loss of income for life," Hasan Hridoy, president of the Rana Plaza Survivors Association, told Diplomat Mahmudul. "But the people who own the garment factories are the same people who hold positions in parliament and government. There is no workers' representative in parliament," he said.

A court in Bangladesh has charged 38 people with murder, including Sohel Rana, owner of the Rana Plaza building and influential ruling party politician.

The managers, workshop owners and building owner are on trial for "forced" their employees, mostly women, to work at Rana Plaza when the building was in obvious danger before the tragedy. The latter allegedly "threatened them not to pay their salaries if they did not work", says prosecutor Bimal Samadder.

But according to him, the trial is so bogged down that a verdict should not be expected for several years.

Progress with the "Bangladesh agreement"

The scale of the Rana Plaza disaster sparked a global outcry. Under international pressure, garment multinationals were pushed to sign, a month after the tragedy, a binding agreement with Bangladeshi unions on safety standards for the country's factories.

Designed under the aegis of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the "Bangladesh agreement" forced 175 signatories (including H&M, Zara, Primark, Uniqlo...) to pay for repairs to their subcontractors' factories as well as to finance an independent factory inspection system.

It brought some 1,820 garment factories, about half of the country's supply base, up to standard and carried out more than 30,000 inspections, covering more than two million Bangladeshi garment workers.

Since 2013, the country has not experienced another major disaster. For Nafis Ud Doula, a member of the safety standards watchdog, "this tragedy has provoked an awareness that has helped clean up a poorly regulated industry".

The cost of these factory security operations is estimated at more than two billion dollars for the textile industry, which has since benefited from a colossal growth in export orders, says Nafis Ud Doula. Textile exports have tripled and brought in $45 billion in the last decade.

Since 2023, an agreement with the same inspection system has been in place in Pakistan. It was signed by 35 foreign companies, including the French brands Carrefour and Monoprix, present in this country that has the same systemic problems of endangering workers.

The limits of the agreement

But the "Bangladesh agreement" has its limits: some large groups present in Bangladesh have not signed the agreement on safety standards, including Walmart, but also the giants Ikea, Amazon, Levi's or the French group Auchan. Half of the factories are not covered.

" READ ALSO "Walmart and Gap, their only interest is to revive business in Bangladesh"

In addition, the agreement must be renewed every three years. And for three years, its structure has changed: "The board of directors is no longer egalitarian: there are twelve members for industrialists against six for unions," explains on RFI the president of the Bangladesh Federation of Textile Workers, Kalpona Akter. "But factory owners are opposed to this control system. So we fear that it will be challenged."

For Nayla Ajaltouni, general delegate of the collective Ethics on the label, interviewed by RFI, the agreement is threatened: "Since 2021, we have struggled to ensure that all clothing multinationals agree to continue to sign this agreement [...], which proves that it is necessary to go through binding regulations."

Below the extreme poverty line

The Rana Plaza tragedy also highlighted the very meagre salaries of textile workers in Asia. And on this point, the situation has not changed.

From Bangladesh to Cambodia to Burma, textile workers regularly demand wage increases, including during demonstrations, some of which are violently repressed. According to workers' organizations, thousands of unionized women workers have also been kicked out of garment factories following strikes and protests during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MEP Valérie Hayer has just returned from Bangladesh, where she went to assess the situation of workers in Dhaka. "I saw on the spot that security has improved in factories that export, because there is international pressure, but wage conditions have not changed," she told France Info. "I saw workers working six days a week, eight to ten hours a day, paid $2.50 a day, while the extreme poverty line is $3.65 a day, in a factory that is considered a model in Bangladesh," she said.

"This factory worked for Australian brands, American brands, for H&M, for La Halle. I met H&M and Zara. The two big brands assured me that they were paying above the poverty line. Nevertheless, they wouldn't tell me how much."

🎥🔎 Dhaka, Bangladesh.

10 years after the Rana Plaza tragedy, I went there. And I'll tell you.

Behind the scenes of my mission, part 1. pic.twitter.com/dXqLyjD6gm

— Valerie Hayer (@ValerieHayer) April 21, 2023

Since the Rana Plaza tragedy, many NGOs have denounced the lack of legal responsibility of multinationals towards the employees of their subsidiaries or subcontractors abroad in terms of human rights.

"For years, we have had an economic model in clothing that is based on production at extremely low cost, in countries where either there is no rule of law, or social rights are flouted, where there are no obligations imposed on large multinational companies to have their clothes manufactured under conditions and with decent wages," points out Nayla Ajaltouni, of the collective Éthique sur l'étique. "So there is really impunity, the absence of binding rules and the absence of legal accountability between these multinationals and their subcontracting chains."

A law in France

In France, the Rana Plaza disaster gave rise to pioneering legislation on the issue. In March 2017, the law on the "duty of vigilance" of companies was born, aimed at sanctioning multinationals for breaches by their subsidiaries or subcontractors.

It makes it possible "to understand the responsibility of parent companies for the activities of their subsidiaries abroad", comments Sandra Cossart, director of the NGO Sherpa, requiring groups to establish, implement and make public a vigilance plan. "In the event of non-compliance, the civil liability of the company may be engaged."

Since 2017, a dozen proceedings have been launched by NGOs against groups such as Casino, Yves Rocher, Suez or TotalEnergies.

However, this law was emptied of some of its substance by the Constitutional Council, which censored its section on sanctions, considering that the wording of the text ("Preventing serious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms") was too vague to justify a fine.

Today, the European Union is working on legislation inspired by the French model. The bill would target violations of human and social rights, but also the environmental damage of European companies in their production chain. As a reminder, the fashion industry is one of the most polluting in the world.

In March 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on due diligence and corporate responsibility. It is now up to the Commission to legislate.

Emergence of "ultra-fast-fashion"

Despite the awareness of the excesses of the fast-fashion industry since 2013, recent years have seen the flourishing of "ultra-fast-fashion".

Brands like Shein, in particular, but also Boohoo or Emmiol – online platforms that sell very cheap clothes – have become essential at the global level in the space of a decade.

Founded in 2012 in China, now based in Singapore and present in 150 countries, the Shein steamroller has built a terribly efficient model. With T-shirts under 5 euros and dresses under 10, the brand pushes the limits of low prices by producing even more than fast-fashion giants like H&M or Zara.

The Chinese online seller is regularly questioned for the manufacturing conditions of its products. For Nayla Ajaltouni, the recent emergence of ultra-fast-fashion and its products with ever lower costs is "a sign of the failure of corporate social responsibility. [...] Shein is an illustration of the lack of regulation of fashion," she laments.

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