Some say they were beaten with iron bars. Others confess their families have been threatened with death. One pregnant woman was assaulted with metal curtain rods.
Two years after a massive garments factory collapsed in a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, killing over 1,100 people and leaving more than 2,500 injured, a major international fund has met its target of raising 30 million dollars to be paid out in compensation to the victims and their families.
Australia’s largest textile workers’ union and activist groups are up in arms that the country’s leading retail chains, who source most of their fashion labels from Bangladesh, are refusing to sign a legally binding accord that will help to improve labour and safety standards in Bangladeshi garment factories.
Last month, 18-year-old Shapla was just another one of thousands of garment workers employed in a factory in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka.