futurejournalismproject:

Final Embrace

Every time I look back to this photo, I feel uncomfortable — it haunts me. It’s as if they are saying to me, we are not a number — not only cheap labor and cheap lives. We are human beings like you. Our life is precious like yours, and our dreams are precious too. — Taslima Akhter.

Image: Two victims of a garment factory building collapse in Savar, Bangladesh by Taslima Akhter via Time Lightbox. Select to embiggen.

UPDATE: Via the New York Times, Clothing Is New Front in Movement for Fair Trade.

With fair-trade coffee and organic fruit now standard on grocery shelves, consumers concerned with working conditions, environmental issues and outsourcing are now demanding similar accountability for their T-shirts. And some retailers are doing what was once unthinkable, handing over information about exactly how, and where, their products were made.

The death toll from the Bangladesh factory collapse is now over 800.