Caring before the worst happens
In April 2013 the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed on thousands of Bangladeshi workers, killing more than 1,100 people. Television viewers around the world watched in horror as body after body was pulled from the rubble. The subsequent investigation gave Canadians a better understanding of the global garment industry. Prior to this, we had no way of making the link between products we buy here in Canada and workers who risk their health and lives.
I recently visited the site where Rana Plaza stood. There’s a real heaviness about the place, a deep sadness that won’t go away. Looking at the sea of rags, threads and garment labels all tangled up in the bricks and rubble, I felt convicted once again that things needed to change.
None of us intended to contribute to conditions that killed so many Bangladeshi garment workers—orphaning children and widowing wives. Yet as shoppers, we all demand the vast selection and low prices that drive both pay rates and working conditions straight to the bottom.
As Christians, we’re called to “look after orphans and widows in their distress and to seek justice.” And it’s critical that we do this. But in the future, wouldn’t it be better to prevent the tragedies that crush the life from the world’s most vulnerable people? Travelling in Bangladesh, I met far too many children forced into hazardous labour situations themselves, because a parent had been maimed or injured at work.
Rana Plaza is a powerful memorial to the people who suffered and died there. But the tragedy can also become a rallying cry for change. For the sake of families with loved ones killed in the tragedy—for children everywhere who are forced to give up their dreams and start work during primary school—we need to speak out. Proverbs challenges each one of us to “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.” And open our mouths we must.
I urge you to sign a petition, calling on Canadian retailers selling products made in Bangladesh to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord. Signatories would be obligated to take immediate action to prevent further tragedies in workplaces anywhere in the world where their products are made. And I encourage you to contact companies directly, pressing for details about every stage of their production process. You can do this via company websites, Facebook and Twitter.
As followers of Jesus, we must certainly do as the Bible calls, and look after the world’s widows and orphans. But let’s not wait until after the next tragedy to start caring.
Dave Toycen, president and CEO of World Vision Canada, recently visited Bangladesh as part of World Vision’s No Child For Sale Campaign.
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