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February 14, 2012
H&M Bangladesh deaths under scrutiny
Published: 28 Feb 10 12:26 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/25260/20100228/
A fire at a H&M factory in Bangladesh last week was not the first to have broken out at the site and the company is investigating allegations that 21 workers who died in the blaze were locked in at the time.
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"Personnel from our local office are on the way there now to find out what happened," she said, adding that it was too early to comment on speculation that a lack of safety provisions at the factory was responsible for the deaths.
When the fire broke out on Thursday at the plant in Gazipur, north of the country's capital, Dhaka, 21 workers were trapped in an upper floor which survivors say was locked, reports TT. At least 40 workers were injured.
The factory which makes knitted sweaters for H&M was previously checked by the company in October 2009 and no major safety shortfalls were found, said Tapper Hoël .
Viveka Risberg, head of Swedwatch, a state funded organization monitoring Swedish companies in developing countries said that it was not the first time workers have died in fires at H&M factories in Bangladesh.
"I know that another factory, that also works for H&M, burned during the last decade and that people died," she told TT.
Risberg, who previously worked for the company and visited the factory in Gazipur, said that workers had been locked in there before.
"I know that it occurred ten years ago, but I thought that it was a thing of the past."
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Swedish word of the day
fin
adjective
Fin means anyhting from sweet to proper. When someone says, Du är så fin it's quite a compliment.
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H&M are as bad as the rest for this.
Cheap clothing = the new slave labour in the third world
Needless to say SWEDWATCH will say everything is wonderful as its a Swedish company
Businessman in Bangladesh only think about their profits not the lives of poor workers !!
They make money on the blood of the garments workers there !!
you can call this Blood Garments !!
Phew, hats off to their negligence. These things should be monitered frequently.
Jenni Tapper Hoël has to be the best name in the world!
When I read out her name I nearly died laughing
the swedish pronunciation "Tapper Hoël" is exactly the same in my local dialect but we would be saying/meaning vagina hole (tupper is slang for female genitals and the Hoël is exactly how we say hole!