Photo source:    http://www.whomadeyourpants.co.uk/

Huge, heartbreaking tragedy occurred in Bangladesh on April 24th, where garment factory building collapsed on garment workers, huge majority of whom were women, young girls, even kids left the nation grieving over more then 420 dead. Now still, days later, rescuers are finding bodies in wreckage and listening to the news daily I am starting to  intensively thinking about my own purchasing habits, and the origin of clothes I own. 

The saddest thing is that this tragedy could have been prevented. Just day before the tragedy government  inspectors who were sent to check out the building due to numerous reports of it being not safe to work in (no different then 80% other factories in this country) advised to evacuate and not to have workers work in it. Next day, greedy factory owner forced his employees to work anyways, ensuring them that the building is fine, hours later building collapsed on them.

Yesterday I saw a   story on CNN of a little girl not older then 15 whom rescuers barely managed to pull out of the buildings's wreckage. She said that her hand got stuck and in order to save her life, they had to amputate it.

Personally, I am not much of a bargain hunter neither I am rich enough to buy cheap clothes, so consequently I choose to focus on clothing's fit, quality and longevity rather then current trend, so I end up buying more pricier items.

 I do follow fashion industry business news daily and if I know that major clothing brand whose clothing I wear is acting unethically, I will stop shopping there, but after learning about Bangladesh tragedy, I feel like I should pay more attention to sourcing of the clothes I buy.

If you just check out the bellow graphic and see the breakdown of the price of one simple t-shirt in US dollars you can't but wonder: How cheap is to cheap?

Only 12 cents per item goes to labour?? This means that an average factory worker in Bangladesh earns $3-$4 per month!  I don't know about you, but I call this a modern day slavery. 

When putting together this post, I was thinking about what kind of photos to choose. I decided not to communicate my disgust  heartbreak and feeling of injustice to you by showing you photos of dead or crippled bodies of these girls and women from Bangladesh factory and listing a "black list" of companies who produce their merchandise there and don't care about conditions their garments are made in. 

In the end, it is up to each of us individually and our own morals to decide how we will choose to shop and consume. Us who create the demand, us who have a constant need to consumer more and more and the companies who use our hunger for more of cheap stuff (usually poor quality items which will not last more then one season anyways) to earn tons of money.

We can turn our head, not ask questions and not care that 15 year old girl who lost her arm to barely feed her family is working in inhumane conditions so we could have this, yet another cheap T-shirt in our closet. OR, we can ACT, ask questions and demand to know how the merchandise we purchase is sourced and made. After all, when we buy it, it comes with certain karma of course.

Wall Disney was the first to demand safer working conditions and quit momentarily production in Bangladesh to try to pressure the local government to regulate factory safety conditions better, next, Gap decided to take steps and EU is also threatening with sanctions ..currently, these are all just band-aid attempts. If you close such factories in Bangladesh more will open in China and India...in reality only we, consumers,  have the power to stop this sad trend and make it safer and more humane.

There is so many fashion bloggers around, such a strong influence and voice and so little interest about sourcing, the dark side of that cute new top you can wear both casual and dressy.

Who made the cute top from your last post lovelies? Maybe this 15 year old who lost her arm.

Sources:   Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion