Sweatshop Fire Research Paper

Hot conditions, dirty buildings, and long, tiring hours are some of the many obstacles sweatshop workers have to endure. Sweatshops, an on-going issue in many countries, began in South American countries like Ecuador and Columbia. The Spanish Conquers would put the people living in their city to work by making cloth, garments and textile goods. This is the earliest form of sweatshops, and from there they only got worse. They grew more popular when immigrants were moving around the country. Immigrants would accept these jobs because they figured that it was better to have a bad job than no job. Since the immigrants did not have enough power to stand up for themselves and change the conditions, they had to accept the bad conditions and continue

“More than 100 people died Saturday and Sunday in a fire at a garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, in one of the worst industrial tragedies in that country.” (Bajaj). In 2012, a major fire broke out in a garment factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The fire killed more than 100 people and lasted for two days. This fire was said to be one of the worst factory fires that they have seen and killed more people than any other fire has. It took firefighters all night to put out the fire, using much of the Dhaka police and firefighters to tame it and rescue people. The factory was 9 stories high, with 3 of the floors under illegal construction. The fire broke out on the first floor and spread up. The first floor was a warehouse floor that was used to store yarn and cloth. The yarn caught on fire and quickly created a ripple effect and caught the rest of the building on fire. (Bajaj) “Most of the workers who died were on the first and second floors, fire officials said, and were killed because there were not enough exits. ‘So the workers could not come out when the fire engulfed the building,’ said Maj. Mohammad Mahbub, the operations director for the Fire Department, according to The Associated Press,” (Bajaj). The fire is was a large controversy throughout the world because the factory did not follow safety laws and broke many rules.

Many students, mostly from colleges around the world, have spoken out toward their feelings on the conditions people have to face. In the quote, a group of college students refused to buy college gear when they found out that they were being made in poor working conditions in many different countries. There are also many pro-workers websites and organizations that have gained national attention. In most of the websites, you can give donations and help towards improving the conditions. “Though most modern sweatshops exist in poorer and developing countries, it is important to note that sweatshop conditions can exist anywhere there is a vulnerable population, including inside the United States,” (Sweatshops). Most people think that sweatshops only exist in countries outside of the United States, but they also exist in the United States. Our country plays a large part in the development of sweatshops and how they have became such a popular topic in less developed countries. Immigrants and undocumented workers in the United States also resort to factories and sweatshops as a safe way to make money. “Meanwhile, popular organizing against sweatshop labor is also gaining momentum. These groups try to capitalize on the knowledge that, if the general public were aware of the conditions in which certain consumer items were produced, they would refrain from buying