Ten years after Rana Plaza, fast fashion continues to wreak havoc, in the absence of sufficiently binding laws

On April 24, 2013, a building collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka in Bangladesh, causing 1,138 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. This terrible accident became the symbol of the consequences of fast-fashion, because the building called Rana Plaza housed garment factories (sweatshops, also nicknamed ” sweatshirts ”) of several western clothing brands such as Mango, Benetton, Auchan, C&A and Carrefour. Ten years later, the survivors are still scarred in their physical and mental health. Some of them have received little financial compensation, rarely enough to cover medical expenses and loss of income after termination of employment.

After the Rana Plaza collapse, what has been done in Bangladesh?

In fact, according to a study by ActionAid Bangladesh, half of the survivors have not found work ten years after the accident. Everyone wants better compensation. However, the people who own such garment factories often hold positions in parliament and government, resulting in conflicts of interest in the pursuit of justice, he notes. France 24.

While 38 people were charged with murder on the spot, western garment brands linked to the scandal signed a charter pledging to improve and better monitor the working conditions of garment workers in the country. The 175 signatories of the agreement with Bangladesh helped bring 1,820 garment factories (about half of the country) into compliance and carry out more inspections. This card has inspired other so called southern countries like Pakistan.

One would have thought that the Rana Plaza scandal would have calmed the pace of production in the country, but quite the opposite has happened: Bangladesh’s textile exports have tripled to $45 billion over the past decade. The country remains the second largest exporter of textiles in the world, right after China.

Also note that many international brands have not signed this agreement such as Walmart, Ikea, Amazon, Lev’is ​​​​​​or Auchan. This charter may well be full of goodwill, but its implementation also depends on its board of directors, where more and more industrialists and fewer and fewer workers’ unions sit.

It should also be remembered that the statutes do not change the fashion industry system, which is largely based on the dynamics of exploitation of the cheaper labor of the countries of the South by the countries of the North, which therefore benefit from a differential of rights social.

France and the European Union have passed laws to curb the damage to the fashion industry

Trying to change this system could involve more restrictive laws, accompanied by penalties. This is what France has tried to do by creating in March 2017 the law on the “duty of supervision” of companies that assume corporate civil liability for the activities of their subcontractors abroad. Therefore, if they do not implement a public surveillance plan, they expose themselves to prosecution.

But the absence of a deterrent fine or other strong penalty is rather like a sword in water. No convictions since the adoption of this law which will now be extended to all of Europe, but under conditions that let a large part of the market slip into the void (this only concerns companies with more than 250 employees and more than 40 million in turnover), regrets Catherine Dauriac, president of Fashion Revolution France, a News France.

Fast-fashion and ultra-fast-fashion: an international problem, not only in Bangladesh

And then, a year before the Rana Plaza collapse, Shein emerged whose practices look much worse than what could be observed a decade ago in Bangladesh. Other brands of the same style (boohoo, Pretty Little Thing…), i.e. ultra fast-fashion, have since abounded. That is why it is so important to rethink the sector in depth and regulate it on an international scale, rather than focusing on a single country like Bangladesh.

Even taking into account the many deaths and unfathomable suffering of the Rana Plaza survivors, one must realize that this is a systemic problem that affects the entire fashion industry. This relies on globalization to make the most of it, at the expense, in particular, of racialized women in the Global South who make up the bulk of the overexploited workforce. This is what falls under Figaro Danielle Auroi, former MEP for Europe Ecology-The Greens and president of the Ethics Collective on Labels:

” Unfortunately, the problem has moved to Africa where multinational sportswear companies exploit women in Ethiopia in conditions of indignity similar to those in Bangladesh before 2013.

In the wake of the Rana Plaza, we also have to reckon the exploitation of Uyghur labor in the production of cotton in China (revealed in March 2020 by the Australian Institute of Political Strategy). These are also the same multinational corporations that continue to practice what is simply modern slavery… »