This content exposes the harsh realities of fast fashion production in Bangladesh, highlighting the exploitation of child labor and severe environmental pollution, while also presenting a message of hope through humanitarian aid and sponsorship programs.
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My dream was to become a doctor, but since I can no longer do that,
I work in clothing factories to pay for my sister's education
so she can become a doctor.
It's unbearably hot. They have to work every day
in these conditions, without being able to go to school,
without being able to envision a future, a different dream than this.
They work without any kind of protection, barefoot.
immersed in this... in this extremely toxic liquid.
I work there until 10 PM. Often, I go to bed at 1 or 2 AM.
Mom gets angry because since I started working at the factory, I can't sleep well anymore.
They don't want us to get close here.
They keep taking us to this side, so
I can already tell you that on the other side
there are children working in this facility, on the clothes that reach our stores
and that we often wear ourselves.
My name is Giuseppe
and I have a mission
to travel the world to meet the most extraordinary people on the planet
and ask them a simple question: What is happiness to you?
Welcome to PROJECT HAPPINESS.
It's exactly from factories
like this one
that the shirt you're wearing right now most likely comes from,
and the less we paid for it, the higher the human price has been.
Because as you can see, the workers around me are mostly children.
The goal of this mission, here in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is to discover
who makes the clothes that often end up in the West, understand
in what conditions they work and find out how I can help these children.
But let's take a step back.
Once upon a time, fashion was synonymous with exclusivity and luxury, but at the end of the 20th century
a combination of technological innovation, cultural changes, and globalization
upended everything.
Clothing production became a frantic race towards speed
and economic efficiency.
Companies literally started flooding the market with new garments,
generating faster and faster trends, followed by more and more people who want
to dress in the latest fashion to express who they are or who they want to be.
Thus, fast fashion was born, and it was precisely at this point that one country in particular
promised to satisfy the Western demand for trendy and cheap clothes:
Bangladesh,
which, to meet a massive global demand for clothes, concentrated
all the productive efforts of a nation almost solely on the textile industry,
but at too high a price paid only by the workers. Women, men, children who have now
become the new slaves of the 21st century and the environment poisoned by chemical waste
released by unscrupulous industries, slowly poisoning the land and the water.
I have never seen anything like this in my entire life
Our journey to the origins of Fast Fashion begins right here, in front of the Buriganga riverbed,
or what remains of it, because today it has become one of the most polluted and toxic rivers in the world,
precisely because of Fast Fashion.
Just think, the Bangladeshi government estimates that every day in its waters are
release about 21,000 cubic meters of untreated industrial wastewater every day.
In fact, the residents of the slums suffer from severe
skin, intestinal, and respiratory diseases.
Precisely because of this devastating pollution.
The city of Dhaka has more than 5,000 slums inhabited by
about 4 million people.
The impact of pollution
generated by the textile industries is devastating on the lives of these people.
Everyone here is very curious to see me
inside this community, we are in Korail Bosti
which is one of the largest slums in the entire country.
In reality, there are many like this because from the 1990s to 2000,
the city of Dhaka especially,
transformed, or rather deformed because slums were born,
shantytowns were built
for the workers, millions of people poured into the city to respond
to the increasing demand for clothes, clothes, clothes.
Clothes that the West demanded, that is, fast fashion.
These workers now live in dilapidated houses like these tin houses
where safety and sanitation are truly a mirage.
It's not difficult to find factories in the slum, they are everywhere
but there is a particular area, namely the tanneries,
which hold the sad record for being among the most toxic places on the planet,
for processing those leathers that will then be exported to various European countries,
especially Italy.
It is estimated that tanneries like this release about 6,000 cubic meters
of toxic substances and ten tons of solid waste into the city's groundwater every day.
These are all workers who work without any kind of protection,
barefoot immersed in this, in this extremely toxic liquid
because it actually comes from these washing machines behind me
which are filled with raw leather
and for 24 hours they are run with lime powder and sodium sulfite inside
to make the leather softer and prepare it for the next step.
The final step before... before selling.
Except this process is extremely toxic.
In fact, we have been here for half an hour and already I feel
I feel like I can't breathe, like I have a headache.
I don't think I'm being influenced, because in reality
these people get sick very easily, very quickly.
This is one of the extreme inhumane working conditions.
I have never seen anything like this and to think that these people have grown up here.
They have always worked here.
The more powder we put in, the more color the leather takes on.
This way a better product comes out to sell.
Exactly! If you put in less, the color is less visible.
Even if I don't want to, I have to do it to survive.
I own nothing, that's why I am
forced to work. I have a family to feed,
we need to live. Where else could I earn money if not here?
These workers and also the children I wasn't allowed to film,
are destined to die before the age of fifty
due to inhaling highly harmful chemical agents.
For what?
To produce a jacket or a pair of shoes that will then be sold
for a few euros to people who don't really need them.
One of the managers is taking us upstairs,
where the leather we just saw is processed to become elegant shoes.
And even here there are...
There are many child workers.
There is one very young right behind me.
I don't know if you can see him.
In the blue shirt, he must be seven or eight years old.
They are preferred over men because they have slimmer hands,
are more precise, and of course, they cost very little.
The gentleman is telling me that the shoe this child is gluing
will become
a loafer that will be sold in Italy as Made in Italy and handmade.
Handmade yes, but made by this child, but made in Bangladesh,
using child labor that violates every human right.
It is precisely the glue that this child is using now that is used
not only to glue shoes, but also outside this factory as a narcotic.
It is used mainly by street children.
The children who work here,
the more naive workers steal it to sell it to other children.
They use it as a drug, which causes irreversible brain damage.
But in these places, reality is often harsher than words.
Just as we left the factory
where that child was gluing shoes,
right in front of us is a child sniffing the same glue
they use in the factory.
What I would do for some rice!
My throat hurts.
I long for some rice. I just want some rice. Rice. Rice.
The glue, with its ephemeral
promise of relief, is only a symptom of a much bigger problem.
It is the symbol of a system that treats children as expendable pawns
in the game of profit.
I managed to enter
one of the thousands and thousands of factories in "Old Dhaka,"
the old part of the capital.
The conditions are always the same,
extreme.
There are dozens of children employed in reproduction work,
mainly shirts.
In this factory, there are usually ten-year-old children on the ground
working.
This is another room.
Even here
most of the workers are just children.
What surprises me, however, is that they are boys and not girls, because usually
in the production of textile clothing, more girls are employed
because they are more precise, more patient.
In this factory, there are only boys because I was told that later the girls finish
removing all the excess threads.
I will also take you to the bathrooms, which are probably
As-salamu alaykum. The boys are washing up so
I will leave them alone.
But I was explaining to them that after a work shift
the best moment is taking a shower because it must be 40 degrees.
Maybe you can also see the sweat on my face, but this is
half an hour inside the factory, while they work every day in these conditions...
I believe...
Even you would never have imagined
that the clothes we wear are produced in these conditions,
but what we have seen so far
is just a small fragment of the fast fashion business in this country.
Because to meet our compulsive purchases
and produce garments designed and made to be cheap and short-lasting.
Bangladesh has built nearly 5,000 mega-industries like this,
where millions of people, mostly women and children, work in unison,
becoming almost a part of these sewing machines.
Usually, these factories are off-limits to cameras,
especially after the Rana Plaza tragedy on April 24, 2013,
when a complex similar to this one collapsed, killing more than 1,100 textile workers.
And that was the first time the Western world truly realized
the cost of their clothes.
After a long interview, however, the managers of this factory
decided to let us visit one floor of their building.
It was almost a miracle to get into this structure
because all the producers, all the textile factory owners,
no longer want to let journalists or cameras into their facilities.
Because the story of Rana Plaza,
the world, all the world's attention was focused here in Bangladesh.
Not enough, because in reality
on the other side of the room
we noticed that there are still children, especially girls, working.
But they don't want us to get close, they keep taking us to this side
so this is the only wing of the building that we will be able to document.
But I can already tell you that on the other side there are
children working in this structure on clothes that reach our stores
and that we often wear ourselves.
Most of the workers here are young women
from rural areas, which are the poorest parts of the country.
In fact, they move, leaving their families at a very young age
for the lowest wage in the world, €0.20 an hour.
But I did not come all the way here to do another report on fast fashion.
The real goal of this mission is, in some ways, more challenging:
to find the girls and boys who work in these factories
and listen to their stories.
After days of searching, thanks to the help of a woman who works for the community,
we manage to meet Jui, a wonderful twelve-year-old girl who has been working
in the factories for a long time to help her family.
Hello
My name is Giuseppe.
My name is Jui.
We have arrived at Jui's house
where this girl will have the pleasure of speaking with us.
She has invited us to her home because she wants to tell us her story.
This is actually a typical house in the slums of Dhaka.
As you can see, it's very small. The lady was already explaining to me that here
Jui lives with her parents and her siblings in that bed.
The bed is tiny, but they all live and sleep here.
Another curious thing is that they have a refrigerator,
they have food in the house, but it is shared with all the neighbors.
And this, this is the kitchen.
Here they cook, here they store food.
As you can see, there are also grates to prevent rats from entering.
There's another very interesting detail
that helps me understand the lives of these children better.
The bed is elevated with these bricks to first
create a sort of storage space.
But also in case there are floods,
so they are not soaked, or rather flooded by the water that would enter the house.
Clearly, the conditions are precarious.
But especially the factory workers around here live in these conditions
and we are privileged to enter one of these houses and listen to
Jui's story because I am sure it will be similar to many other stories of many girls
and boys working in these factories.
This is me, this is my younger sister, and that is my brother.
Is this you? Jui?
This is me.
Ok, ok.
Who lives here with you?
My sister and I stay here, and my parents sleep on the floor.
And where are your parents now?
My mother is at a clothing factory, while my father... I don't know where he is.
Why aren't you at school now?
I had to leave school because my mother was in debt.
When I was in fifth grade, I was so happy.
I had many friends, we laughed and played together.
But now that doesn't happen anymore. I miss it a lot.
Only because of money problems,
I had to start working. My aunt advised me to work
to bring home some money. And so, they took me to the factory.
I earn almost €4 a day. At first, I even liked it,
but now I always feel tired because I work all day.
For the first 5 months, I held on, I kept working, but now I feel lonely.
and I don't like it.
I work there until 10 PM. Often, I go to bed at 1 or 2 AM.
Jui, what is your biggest dream?
If I had been able to continue studying,
I could have helped my parents with a good job and been independent.
I could have saved my family. It would have been nice if it had gone that way.
My dream was to become a doctor, but since I can no longer do that, My dream was to become a doctor, but since I can no longer do that,
I work in clothing factories to pay for my sister's education
so she can become a doctor.
How can a twelve-year-old girl
be so resigned and aware that her dreams will never come true?
It's not fair.
Jui is part of that million children whose future is stolen
to exploit them in factories.
A number so large that it almost makes you lose hope that anything here
can ever change.
Yet there is someone who, with unwavering commitment,
has always believed that by uniting the generosity of people around the world,
we could give them back the right to be children.
In Dhaka, I met with the leaders of the humanitarian organization Action Aid,
who, through their sponsorship programs,
can ensure that
children like her receive the assistance they desperately need.
And I am not just talking about education and medical care,
but also crucial emotional support to overcome the scars
of exploitation, as happens in this center called Happy Home,
a shelter for street children where they can feel safe and finally transform
their stories of suffering into tales of hope and rebirth.
If I hadn't come here,
I would certainly be working in a factory now, or I would be
working in other people's houses like my mother.
I see many poor children begging for food,
and this makes me very angry, but I can't do anything about it.
I would have ended up like them if it weren't for this place.
Here I can eat all my meals, but before it wasn't like that.
Here I have my sisters and friends who give me food and make sure I am well and eat.
Before, no one took care of me.
This home makes me feel good.
I had a terrible past, and I hope so much that other children do not have to suffer the same.
I hope they all come to live here to feel as good as I do
and that they can study. I couldn't before,
and neither can the children who are still outside.
I have received so much support here
that I wish it could reach them too.
Before leaving...
Sanjida, one of the leaders of ActionAid in Bangladesh, wants to give me a unique moment
with the children sponsored from afar to realize what it means for them
to have a distant friend who loves them unconditionally.
What are you drawing, Meem? What is this?
It's a house.
And this?
This is my friend who helps me from afar.
And who is this?
This is me.
And this one?
My younger sister.
What are you doing?
We are drawing.
Drawing? Okay.
You know, this is not just a drawing.
This is trust.
This is a bond
between her and her friend
who lives far away
and who supports her through sponsorship.
These children have
many opportunities,
and they are getting the chance
to draw, to study, and to go to school.
But you know, there are,
...you have seen it...
there are so many children
who do not have that opportunity.
We try to provide a safe space for all children here.
Our mission with ActionAid,
and also my personal mission, is to leave no child behind.
You know, we go door to door every day to see
if there are children who need our support, who need us.
It's unacceptable that children work in those places
you have seen.
They work in factories like machines just for food.
It is our responsibility to give them
a life, a good and happy life.
I don't know how many people are watching this video, but they must believe
that with sponsorship, they can change the lives of these children.
Sanjida is right, sponsorship
can really change a life, because not only do they receive material support,
but also an invaluable treasure, the certainty of being loved and valued.
And at this point, the most important question of this mission
is for them: what is happiness?
Singing!
Drawing!
Traveling!
Playing football!
Chatting with my mother!
Putting on makeup.
Playing with balloons!
Driving in a car!
Playing with dolls!
Playing cricket!
Toys!
Planting trees!
Singing songs!
Pizza.
Coloring!
This is how happiness should be for a child.
Simple, carefree.
Unfortunately...
On this journey, we have seen that it is not like this for everyone
and in the end,
we cannot delude ourselves into thinking we can change the system these children are victims of.
But all of us, even if far away, can do so much for them
and for many other children who are victims of the same injustices in India,
in Cambodia, in Vietnam.
We can sponsor them from afar
and protect their right to healthcare, education, food, and play.
But most importantly, we can give them back their childhood,
because no child should be denied it,
and none of them should be forbidden from dreaming.
Change their life forever and yours too. CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE FIRST COMMENT
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