Coronavirus measures give Bangladeshi workers for global clothing chains a stark choice: disease or starvation

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Over the past three decades, global inequality has reached a critical level. The world’s 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%. Multinational fashion companies have secured billions of dollars by moving production locations abroad and using supply chains in developing countries including Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar, where labour costs are very low.

The revenues of each of the 25 biggest companies are larger than the GDPs of some countries. Despite this, the lives of most of the workers involved in production for many of these companies have not improved. It takes a CEO from a big fashion, retail or other company just four days to earn the same amount a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn over her lifetime.