The True Cost of Wal-Mart’s ‘Everyday Low Prices’: Victims of Bangladesh’s Tazreen Factory Fire Still Wait For Compensation From U.S. Companies

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Managing Editor, Impunity Watch

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Two years ago last month a deadly fire broke out in the in the Tazreen Fashion factory in the Ashulia district on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. At least 17 women and girls were killed in the factory, which made clothing for several major American brands including Wal-Mart and the Walt Disney Company. The fire injured at least 200 workers, making it the deadliest factory fire in Bangladeshi history. Workers in the factory were subjected to sweatshop labor conditions and low pay, as well as an unsafe working environment. Many of the women and girls who worked in the factory were trapped inside when the fire broke out on 24 November 2012 because the factory management had padlocked the exits to prevent workers from leaving early or even taking breaks. Several workers jumped out of windows in an attempt to escape the flames engulfing the factory floor. One survivor, Mohammad Ripu, who jumped from the second floor in an attempt to escape the flames, said that the factory manager had said to the workers after the fire alarm began sounding that “the fire alarm had just gone out of order. Go back to work.”

A Bangladeshi woman holds a portrait of her relative who went missing in the Nov. 24, 2012 fire at Tazreen Fashions factory as she forms a human chain with others during a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh calling for an end to poor working conditions. (Photo courtesy of Mint Press News)

Three supervisors from the factory were arrested on 28 November 2012, on charges of criminal negligence. Police cited the practice of padlocking exits allegedly used by factory management. Tazreen Factory owner Delwar Hossain claimed that the premises were not unsafe, adding, “It is a huge loss for my staff and my factory. This is the first time we have ever had a fire at one of my seven factories.” However, it was known that the building was not up to code. Investigators found that the fire safety certificates for the facility had expired. This level of negligence is common in factories across the developing world, especially in the garment industry, where workers are underpaid and often subjected to sub-standard working conditions.

Two years after the fire, survivors continued to share their stories. “I jumped from the fourth floor. I lost my eye and broke my spinal cord and leg,” Shahnaz Begum, a Tazreen worker said. “I can’t stand straight and I can’t lie down. I can’t work – I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. I’m still waiting for fair compensation.” Even two years after the deadly fire took the lives of at least 17 people and sparked international outrage over the poor working conditions in sweatshops across Bangladesh and around the world, the victims of the deadly event and their families are still waiting for compensation from the western companies that contracted with the factory, including well known American brands.

These brands include labels produced by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., reportedly the largest buyer at the Tazreen factory, as well as Walt Disney Co., Sears Holdings Corp, Dickies, Delta Apparel, Sean Jean, and several others. Advocacy groups say these brands continue to refuse not only to offer adequate compensation, but to even enter into discussions regarding the events with representatives of survivors and their families forward. Essentially, these brands have attempted to distance themselves from the horrific events that unfunded at the Tazreen factory in order to avoid drawing attention to the fact that their business models depend on the use of slave-like sweatshop labor.

“Wal-Mart has yet to take any responsibility for the workers killed and injured,” Babul Akhter, a representative the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, said last week. Workers at the Tazreen factory say that when the fire broke out, they had just finished filling a shipment to Wal-Mart. According to IndustriALL Global Union, an umbrella group with 50 million members worldwide, US brands that bought projects from the factories continue to refuse to move forward on compensation talks. “None of these brands have paid a cent towards compensation,” IndustriALL states.

The Tazreen factory fire is often compared to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, which took the lives of more than 100 garment workers in a sweatshop in Manhattan, many of the women and girls who were killed in the fire jumped to their deaths to escape the smoke and flames after they were locked into the building. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire became one of the most significant events in the American Labor Movement sparking calls for stricter workplace safety standards, fair pay, and unionization across the United States. The Tazreen factory fire has had a similar effect in Bangladesh. The event reminded the world that low-priced clothing comes at a cost, and strengthened calls among factory workers in Bangladesh and around the world to demand safer working conditions, fair compensation, and even the right to join a labor union.

For more information please see:

Mint Press News – Two Years On, Bangladeshi Garment Workers Still Awaiting Compensation from Major US Brands – 4 December 2014

Clean Clothes Campaign – Agreement on Tazreen compensation announced – 23 November 2014

The New York Times – Documents Reveal New Details about Walmart’s Connection to Tazreen Factory Fire – 10 December 2012

The Wall Street Journal – Bangladesh Fire: What Wal-Mart’s Supplier Network Missed – 10 December 2014

Assad Regime Cuts Welfare to Fund Military Campaign against Rebels and Civilians

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

DAMASCUS, Syria – In response to increasing economic instability the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has scaled back on subsidies given to citizens for goods ranging from water to heating oil, necessary for surviving the cold Syrian winter, over the past six month. The Syrian people already suffer extreme economic hardship due to the county’s high unemployment rate, hovering at around 50%, crippling inflation and massive infrastructure damage and damage to industry suffered as a result of the country’s long civil war which is entering its fourth year. As Syria approaches the long winter months power outages and food shortages have worried across the country. Despite the continues splintering of rebel groups  and Syria as well as the efforts by the United States and coalition airstrikes to halt the spread of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the region the Assad regimes feels the need to divert funding from Syria’s vulnerable poor populations in order to support its continued war efforts.

A man holds a baby saved from under rubble, who survived what activists say was an air strike by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Masaken Hanano in Aleppo, in this Feb. 14, 2014. The Assad regime has recently cut welfare intended to provide vital resources to the Syrian poor in order to continue its campaign against the Syrian rebels, often targeting civilians the regime believes to be loyal to rebel groups. (Photo courtesy of Al Arabiya)

Other economic problems such as falling tax revenues, a collapse in the currency and rising bills for imports have also pushed the regime deeper into “survival mode,” said Riad Kahwaji, an analyst and chief executive of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf ­Military Analysis. Although the government’s budget figures are not made public, analysts say Damascus has had to shift priorities to pay for the war effort.

In response to its economic woes, which have hindered the regime’s ability to continue its brutal campaign against rebels and populations deemed to be sympathetic to rebel groups the Assad regime has slashed spending on social welfare, including cutting subsidies for water and electricity over the summer. Last month, the government began to cut funding for diesel and heating oil.

In a rare interview published by Paris Match, a French language magazine, on Thursday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed that he would remain in power, despite calls from the rebels on the ground in Syria as well as much of the international community for him to step down. He also asserted that the Syrian Civil war will be long and difficult because his army could not be everywhere at once, apparently an attempt to justify increased spending on the war effort at the expense of government welfare programs.

“The Syrian army cannot be everywhere at once. Where it is not present, terrorists take the opportunity to cross borders and infiltrate in one area or another,” said the French language magazine in comments apparently quoting the Syrian president.  “It is not about a war between two armies, where one occupies a territory and the other another one. It is another type of war. We are dealing with terrorist groups that infiltrate a town or village. So this war will be long and difficult,” it continued. The text was also published by Syrian state media on Thursday.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the Syrian Civil War, which has created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, has taken the lives of more than 200,000 people in its four year history.  “We have documented the killing of 202,354 people since March 2011,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

For more information please see:

Newsweek – Assad Says Syrian War Will Be “Long and Difficult” In Rare Interview – 4 December 2014

Foreign Policy – Assad Airstrikes Aren’t Helping Me; Hollande you’re As Popular as ISIS –

Al Arabiya – Syria Death Toll Now Exceeds 200,000: Monitor – 2 December 2014

The Washington Post – Syria’s Assad Regime Cuts Subsidies, Focuses Ailing Economy on War Effort – 29 November 2014

Illegal Gold Mining Destroying Peruvian Rainforests

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

LIMA, Peru – Large shafts of Peru’s Amazonian rainforests are disappearing every day, turned from once pristine virgin rainforest ecosystems, home to countless animal and plant species, have been turned into fragmented forests and mercury poisoned wastelands. This devastating deforestation trend is driven by illegal gold mining operations in Peru, a practice dependent on the use of toxins like mercury, a neurotoxin used to bind gold found in natural deposits. The ruined wastelands scar the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, a region high in biodiversity whose unique natural environment attacks scientists interested in studying the area for its future pharmaceutical and scientific potential as well as eco-tourists whose visits help support the region’s economy. The practice of illegal mining is devastating to the local indigenous community, who live in voluntary isolation deep within the Amazonian forests.

This Nov. 11, 2014 aerial photo, shows a deforested area dotted with tarps, marking the area where illegal miners reside, and water-filled craters polluted with toxic levels of mercury dumped as a result of illegal gold mining, in La Pampa, in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. (Photo courtesey of U.S. News and World Report)

Over the past decade, mining has denuded 230 square miles (595 square kilometers) of forest in the Madre de Dios region, poisoning the critical watershed. A study released last year, led by the Carnegie Institution for Science, found that 76.5 percent of people in the region had mercury levels above acceptable limits. Illegal mining is the second largest cause of deforestation in Peru, behind clear-cutting for agricultural development, Environmental Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal said. “It is terrible for the nearly irremediable wounds it causes to the forest,” he said.

Rainforests serve as large scale natural carbon seeks, absorbing and holding atmospheric carbon dioxide, which make these ecosystem’s important natural mitigation tool for global climate change. Peru is home to the second-largest area of the Amazonian rainforest, after Brazil. According to the findings of new research conducted by the Carnegie Institute for Science (CIS) the Peruvian rainforests stores nearly seven billion metric tons of carbon stocks, mostly in its Amazon rainforest which is higher than The United States’ annual carbon emissions for 2013 which were calculated at 5.38 billion tons. However, according to Greg Asner, the project “found that nearly a billion metric tons of above-ground carbon stocks in Peru are at imminent risk of emission into the atmosphere due to land uses such as fossil fuel oil exploration, cattle ranching, oil palm plantations and gold mining.”

Deforestation and land conversion account for about 40 percent of Peru’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Peruvian government has vowed to halt deforestation by 2021, and Norwegian in September pledged $300 million toward that goal. However, Peru’s stewardship and conservation efforts have come under scrutiny by environmentalists as deforestation appears to be on the rise in the country. Despite the government’s crackdown on illegal minge smuggling has continued to proliferate in the country as smugglers move to bring illegal gold across the border into Bolivia for export to the United States.

The United Nations will host the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties e to the Kyoto Protocol to United Nations Convention on Climate Change will be held from December 1 to 12 December and is being hosted by the Government of Peru, in Lima.

For more information please see:

U.S. News and World Report – Scarred, poisoned wasteland highlights Peru’s challenges in halting deforestation – 2 December 2014

Reuters – FEATURE-Peru crackdown on illegal gold leads to new smuggling routes – 25 November 2014

The Guardian – Peru’s forests store more CO2 than US emits in a year, research shows – 7 November 2014

The United Nations Convention on Climate Change – Lima Climate Change Conference – December 2014 – December 2014

Controversy of Israeli “Jewish State” Bill

By Max Bartels 

Impunity Watch Reporter, The Middle East 

 

Jerusalem, Israel

Israel is in the midst of passing legislation known as the “Jewish State” bill, a bill that would effectively enshrine Jewish law in the Basic law (Constitution) of the nation. This is significant for several reasons; first, the basic premise of the law puts Jewish law and Jewish rights before democracy. Jewish law would become the basis of the Israeli legal system, while it affirms the personal rights of all citizens, but according to the law communal rights are reserved only for Jewish citizens. The Arab minority in Israel, which accounts for about 20% of the population, would have rights as individuals but not national rights.  The Arab minority is afraid that they will be framed as second-class citizens in a nation that is meant for Jews. The proposed laws effect has caused a great deal of controversy and it has come at a time where Arab-Israeli relations are the most strained they’ve been in sometime.

IW #26 Jewish State
Palestinian Israeli citizens protest the proposed “Jewish State” bill (Photo curtesy of Al Jazeera)

There are many who believe that for the Arab population who hold Israeli citizenship nothing significant will change. According to many Arab advocacy groups, for the most part Arabs have never had equal rights to Jewish Israeli citizens. The Arab population has always faced discrimination; the only practical effect, they claim is that the bill will now make it legal. Israelis who support the bill are mainly comprised of Israel’s right wing Likud Party. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a member of the Likud party; the right wing has pushed him for a nationalist bill for sometime. Palestinian leaders and other Arab leaders still refuse to recognize the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, the Prime Minister has stressed this in many speeches given in support of the bill. Advocates of the bill say it is the right of the Jewish people to pass legislation in their own country.

Protests have been wide spread by both Arabs and Jews who don’t support the bill. Most protesters believe the bill is fueling an already raging fire. The U.S. State Department has urged Israel to uphold democratic principles. The European Union has also spoke out against the passage of the Jewish State bill. Tensions will continue to rise as the wait for the vote on the bill continues.

The Prime Minister’s Cabinet approved the bill by a vote of 14-6. The bill now has to pass through the Israeli Knesset, which is the legislative body of the Israeli government. However, the vote has been delayed in the Knesset due to the Prime Minister calling for early elections and the dissolving of the parliament. The vote on the bill will be delayed until a new parliament is elected.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera — “We are not Citizens with Equal Rights” — 3 December 2014

The Telegraph — What is the Jewish State Bill? — 27 November 2014

Eyewitness News — Hundreds Protest over “Jewish State Bill” — 2 December 2014

The Jerusalem Post — PM: Palestinian Failure to Recognize Jewish Links to Israel is a “Tragedy” — 1 December 2014