These are
the photographs that show the grim reality for thousands of children in
Bangladesh who are forced to work long crippling hours stitching labels into
clothes.
Despite
improved safety standards in formal factories, unregistered sweatshops like
these are not inspected.
While the
factories mainly make clothes for the local and Indian market, they also supply
well-known and established international brands through subcontracts, which
making it difficult for companies to know exactly where all their clothes are
coming from.
Reporter has revealed both the shocking lack of safety
controls inside some of Bangladesh's unregulated clothes factories as well as
the grueling routines of the children that work there
An informal
factory could comprise of a room with 15 sewing machines and are often without
emergency exits, fire safety plans or extinguishers as they are not subjected
to the nation wide fire and buildings safety assessments.
The
children, who don't have time to go to school, are tasked with a huge range of
jobs from embroidery and sticking on sequins to dyeing fabric and machine
cleaning.
Inside these factories garment workers work six to six and a half days per
week from dawn till far after dusk for a minimum wage. The workers from these
factories sleep inside or rent rooms next to these factories.
'They come
from villages to cities seeking for employment and dreaming of a better life,'
he said.
It is
thought there are about a million children aged 10 to 14 working as child
labourers in Bangladesh, according to UNICEF - but the number is far higher
when the age band is expanded.
But they end
up scraping a living - that doesn't much exist outside of work. In one
photograph, Casil shot boys showering at the factory, which is where they
eat, wash and sleep due to workload.
More than 80
percent of Bangladesh's garment factories supplying global retailers have been
found to be safe, according to the government.
Syed Ahmed,
the inspector general of factories, said 1,475 garment factories had been
assessed as part of a government initiative supported by the International
Labour
Organization, Canada, the Netherlands and United Kingdom.
Some 81
percent were found to adhere to building codes, as well as fire and electrical
safety standards, he said.
Among the
other factories, the government has ordered 37 to be closed for failing to
address safety issues on their premises and another 209 have been warned they
would be closed if they didn't take remedial measures immediately.
The rest
await further assessment and possible closure.
Bangladesh's
garment export industry, the world's second biggest, has been in the spotlight
since the collapse of Rana Plaza in a Dhaka suburb in 2013 in which more than
1,100 people were killed, most of them poor seamstresses.
The accident
prompted a review of safety standards in the factories, with many handed lists
of structural, electrical and fire safety fixes and upgrades costing hundreds
of millions of dollars.
The garment
industry is the lifeline of Bangladesh's economy, earning $25 billion in exports
each year and employing 4 million workers, mainly women.
Bangladesh's
garment industry is the second-largest exporters of textiles after China and
has a notorious fire safety record.
More than
1,100 people died at a garment factory fire outside Dhaka in 2013 in one of
Bangladesh's worst industrial accidents.
And the
working conditions and facilities are much worse than most formal export
oriented factories - which are inspected regularly.
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