Undercover Look Inside A Bangladesh Garment Factory

Arjun Walia
Activist Post

Below is a video of a clothing factory in Bangladesh, where the workers are unethically young. These particular children are paid approximately (at most) 40 dollars a month to work everyday, rotating on 12-hour shifts.

Corporations, especially many North American-based ones, often travel to poverty stricken areas in different countries all across the world for cheap labor so they can maximize their profits. This is ridiculous, these corporations could easily afford to provide jobs for adults at a good rate of pay in comfortable conditions. Sometimes I wonder if it’s really to maximize profit or to purposely exploit children and have them struggle every day, that these corporations get a rise out of that.

Clothing corporations that exploit children make billions upon billions of dollars every year. It’s not just clothes, but everything. Not long ago it was revealed that inside Apple’s Chinese factory, workers were paid 1 dollar an hour to produce iPhones and iPads for the West. They even have suicide nets outside their factories because people were commonly jumping out of the windows.

Are you telling me that these corporations cannot afford to pay their workers properly, provide them with a healthy work environment and stop exploiting children? Are you telling me that this is an opportunity for children to provide for their family? It’s hard to perceive it that way when it clearly doesn’t have to be this way.

If you follow the money, it’s not hard to see who is in control. Corporations commonly override governments and dictate governmental policy. Our entire system and way of life needs to be re-worked in order for things to change. Having the attitude of “well what can I do?” doesn’t help. There is always something you can do. One way to start is to reduce the unnecessary consumption of clothes. Use the ones you have for as long as you possibly can. You can also buy clothes that are ethically produced.

Most garment factory children come from extreme poverty, and many of them are happy to have the opportunity to help provide whatever they can for their families. The fact that these children can be so thankful for something we perceive as extremely unethical is something to think about. At the same time, there is no justification for this type of thing.

I often wonder how athletes, musicians and other celebrities can endorse corporations like Nike. They see a giant paycheck, and instantly sell their soul. They can afford to pay all of these figures millions and millions of dollars, but they can’t afford to set up a proper working environment for their workers, and hire adults, not children. It just doesn’t make sense, and makes me believe that there is some other disgusting motivation beyond profit.

Toronto Star reporter Raveena Aulakh worked undercover in a Bangladesh garment factory for a first hand look at their working conditions. Please keep in mind that although all factory work of this kind is very unethical, conditions range from terrible to unimaginable in some places.