A deadly fire killed hundreds in Ali Enterprise’s factory in Karachi, Pakistan. You’d expect that a tragedy like this could have been prevented. And you’re right. It could have but in a world where money takes precedence over safety, things like this happen more often then you know of.
There have been numerous occurrences over the years where lack in safety has taken a back seat in order for the company to make more profit. Just to quote a few from the article:
- September 2012: At least 38 killed in a fire at a fireworks factory in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu
- August 2004: A fire in a supermarket in Paraguay kills at least 364 people
- November 1993: More than 80 workers killed in a fire in a toy factory in southern China
- May 1993: At least 188 people are killed in a fire at a Thai toy factory
Almost all these buildings lacked little to no fire extinguishers or fire escapes. In some of the factories, like Ali Enterprise’s, fire exits were blocked off for more storage space. There was one way in and one way out and people were running to escape before the only entrance was smothered in flames.
The lack of safety for more output is a common practice in third world countries. Why? Because they want to meet the demand of their employer. Giant Businesses that have no care of where their product is created. It’s not like it’s subtle either. We, as consumers, are aware of this fact but we’ll still buy the product. To ask a simple question, why?
When looking at a product, it is not obvious whether the factory in which it was produced has up-to-par safety standards as a consumer. When I’m in the super market buying my peanut butter, I cannot look at the jar and say ‘Hey, the factory in which this was made doesn’t have fire extinguisher.’ It is up to the people who created the safety standards, i.e. the government, to enforce them. If the government approaches the peanut butter factory and notices no extinguishers, they should fine the company until the company has to make a choice between either getting extinguishers or paying the fines – which would then result in a raising of the price of peanut butter, deterring the customer from buying the peanut butter. It shouldn’t be the customer’s responsibility to know everything about every company that they buy products from. @daniellau