Claudio Montesano Casillas, a photographer went to Bangladesh to capture the horrific condition of young kids and extent of child labor in their garment factories.
Bangladesh is a leading producer of cloth. Its garment factories are very famous. However, most of the clothes are produced in unregistered factories. Clothes produced from such unregistered factories are sold mainly in the local market and also in Indian markets. However, they also have started selling those internationally.
By making various contracts with the factory owners, many international brands have their clothes produced at very low costs. They gain a lot of profit by selling them at regular rates in their international markets.
Most of the rooms there lack a lot of basic amenities. All the rooms are filled with around 15 sewing machines. They don’t have any safety measures like fire extinguishers or emergency exits.
Most of the teenagers there are deprived of education. They just do not have any time to pursue education. They are indulged into child labor by these factories since a very young age. If these teenagers quit their job, they wouldn’t even have enough money to have a full-fledged meal.
According to the statistics given by UNICEF, approximately 5 million children aged from 5 to 15 years are into child labour in various factories around Bangladesh.
In 2013, a very dreadful mishap happened. Among all the factories, one named as Rana Plaza factory got burned down in 2013 and caused around 1,100 deaths. Even after this horrifying incident, Bangladesh has not taken any efforts to improve the safety regulations.
The garment industry alone brings over $25 billion in exports each year to Bangladesh. As a result, it has become impossible to replace this with anything else.
However, child labor is not an appropriate solution. Also, the condition of the workers is not quite good. There are no safety measures taken. Even the wage paid to the children is not fair.
Every day, a single worker is made to sew at least one hundred pieces of clothes.
Keraniganj in Dhaka has over hundred factories that aren’t even formal.
Since appropriate care of toxic waste and chemicals is not taken, the production of clothing adds up to the level of water pollution to a great scale.
On the other hand, registered factories have a better working condition and over 60% of the workers working there are women.
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