Cheap clothes!
Their cost, it turns out, is beyond calculation.
“Babul Mia said he identified his wife Mariam Begum, 25, who was apparently burnt beyond recognition, but he could identify her bangles and her small teeth,” reported Bangladesh’s main English-language newspaper, The Daily Star.
“Zahera Begum, who worked on the fifth floor of Tazreen Fashions, too, was identified by her husband Iqramul from her nose ring, bangles and necklace.”
So a fire swept through a sweatshop in Bangladesh on Nov. 24, killing at least 112 people, nearly half of whom were unidentifiable and buried in a mass grave. The sweatshop, which produced brand-name garments for major retail outlets such as Walmart and Sears, has been described as a deathtrap: It lacked working fire extinguishers and external fire escapes; one of the exit doors was locked; and, oh yeah, when the fire alarm first went off, the bosses told everyone to go back to their sewing machines.
“Had there been at least one emergency exit through outside the factory, the casualties would have been much lower,” the local fire department operations director said.