Garments fire: history repeats itself.

One hundred years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City that caused the death of 146 garment workers, a garment fire on November 24, 2012 in Bangladesh resulted in 111 deaths under remarkably similar circumstances. The majority of these workers were also young women, economically disadvantaged, migrants, and, by any definition, vulnerable. Fires have been a persistent problem in Bangladesh’s garment industry for more than a decade, with hundreds of workers killed over the years. This most recent episode broke out in a factory just outside Dhaka, the capital city where workers were making clothes for major multinationals including Wal-Mart and Sears [Bustillo et al., 2012; Manik and Yardley, 2012]. This was the worst industrial accident in Bangladesh’s history and prompted widespread calls inside and outside the country for better safety measures in this industry. THE CONTRIBUTION OF GARMENTS TO THE COUNTRY’S ECONOMY