Songs of Blood

Tens of thousands of workers, mostly women, work at Bangladesh’s more than 4000 clothing factories often termed as sweatshops by some Westerns and death traps by others. Because, they more often than not die at work for lack of safety measures.In a factory building collapse on the outskirts of Bangladesh capital, at least 1,130 people died in April in 2013. The poorly constructed building caved in when nearly 5,000 people were working inside the eight-storey building. Nine people including the owner died in May in the same year as fire broke out in a sweater factory in Dhaka which earned $50 million a year. At least 112 people, mostly women, died as fire ripped through a factory in Savar in November 2012. As they work with the rhythm of rattling sewing machines for leading western brands and also for earning US$28 billion, 80 per cent of their own country’s total exports a year, these poorly paid and half-fed seamstresses compose their songs of blood.