No guarantee clothes made in safe factories: report

More than three quarters of the Dutch clothing companies that signed the Bangladesh accord will not say with which Bangladeshi factories they are doing business with. This makes it very difficult for consumers to know whether the garments they purchase are made in a safe factory with good working conditions. According to inspectors from the Bangladesh Accord, which stands for responsible clothing production, the safety standards in more than a thousand Bangladeshi factories are still very bad, NOS reports. The fire in the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, where five garment factories were established, on April 24, 2013, led to the Bangladesh accord.The building collapsed and claimed the lives of 1,138 people and left 2,500 wounded. The accord is an agreement between 184 clothing companies, trade unions and NGO's, such as the Clean Clothes Campaign. According to NOS, when approached only four out of the 20 Dutch clothing companies that signed the the Bangladesh accord made the names of their factories known. These four companies were Vingino, G-Star, The Sting and Prenatal. The rest refused to do so, claiming competitive reasons. Clothing companies are not required to disclose the names of their suppliers. This is why the agreement does not go far enough, says the Clean Clothes Campaign. The organization wants mandatory openness regarding production sites. Based on the responses of ten Dutch companies, at least 108 Bangladeshi factories are used by Dutch signatories of the accord, NOS reports. According to the companies, 60 factories have been inspected. The inspected factories have been declared safe by inspectors.