http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2314532/Bangladesh-building-collapse-Daughters-agony-discovers-mother-230-dead-Primark-factory-disaster.html
Do we relinquish our Rights when we are forced to take a certain kind of job in order to survive? Are those who are providing us with this certain kind of job knowingly depriving us of our rights? Should our employment contract reflect this suspension of Human Rights so that if there is some horrible "accident", it's acceptable because there is a belief that there will be collateral damage in the striving for profit and survival? If a point of safety within the workplace is deliberately ignored and/or covered up in the name of saving money or maximising profit, is it a violation of Rights?
At what point do we determine that the collateral damage incurred in the name of profit is too much? Would we even be willing to recognise such a point?
In terms of those manufacturers that make safety equipment, but in an inferior quality, should they be held accountable for the subsequent deaths and injuries? Should they be charged with violating Human Rights?
If profit maximisation is more important than protecting and fulfilling the Human Rights of every person, can we still believe ourselves to be essentially good? If we ignore the violation of Rights of another, are we in fact partaking in the act of violation itself?
Should the owner of a company that violates the Rights of its employees be given more/greater Rights than his/her employees because of his/her economic status? Is this why it is never the CEO's who die in workplace accidents?
Bangladeshi
rescue workers are continuing their increasingly desperate for survivors in a
collapsed clothes factory building where workers made cheap clothes for
Primark.
Hundreds
were killed when the eight-storey Rana Plaza in Savar on the outskirts of
Dhakar collapsed yesterday, the day after cracks were seen in its walls. The
death toll continues to rise and currently stands at more than 230. Forty
people have been pulled alive from the rubble today.
There were
agonising scenes of grief as relatives lined up to identify corpses laid
outside a local school building. One woman screamed in anguish as she reached
out to her mother, pulled dead from the heartbreaking scene of destruction.
Others wept
and threw themselves onto the still dust-covered bodies of their dead loved
ones, who worked for companies that say their customers also include retail giants
such as WalMart.
Many of
those working in the building at the time were young women, while some of those
killed and injured are bound to be children as the building also housed a
crèche.
Hundreds of
rescuers, some crawling through the maze of rubble in search of survivors and
corpses, have worked through the night amid the cries of the trapped and the
wails of workers' relatives gathered outside.
Around 2,000
people have so far been pulled out alive. Doctors at local hospitals said they
were unable to cope with the number of victims arriving from the disaster site.
This
afternoon workers still trapped could be heard crying out for help as
firefighters and soldiers using drilling machines and cranes struggled to reach
them.
'Save us
brother. I beg you brother. I want to live,' moaned Mohammad Altab, a garment
worker pinned tightly between two concrete slabs and next to two corpses.
'It's so
painful here ... I have two little children,' Altab said, his voice weak from
exhaustion. Another survivor, whose voice could be heard from deep in the rubble,
wept as he called for help.
'We want to
live brother, it's hard to remain alive here. It would have been better to die
than enduring such pain to live on. We want to live, please save us,' the man
cried. - MailOnline
At what point do we determine that the collateral damage incurred in the name of profit is too much? Would we even be willing to recognise such a point?
In terms of those manufacturers that make safety equipment, but in an inferior quality, should they be held accountable for the subsequent deaths and injuries? Should they be charged with violating Human Rights?
If profit maximisation is more important than protecting and fulfilling the Human Rights of every person, can we still believe ourselves to be essentially good? If we ignore the violation of Rights of another, are we in fact partaking in the act of violation itself?
Should the owner of a company that violates the Rights of its employees be given more/greater Rights than his/her employees because of his/her economic status? Is this why it is never the CEO's who die in workplace accidents?
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