‘Sometimes I wish God reversed the clock so we could bring our loved ones back home’

The blemished and crumbling structure of the Ali Enterprises on Hub River Road in Karachi is a stark reminder of the calamity that hit the two-storey garment manufacturing facility exactly eight years ago today.

Saeeda Khatoon’s only son, whom she lovingly called Ayan, was among the 260 dead victims of the fire. He was a curly-haired, bespectacled teenager who had just started growing a moustache. The fire had raged for three days. It took rescuers a night to bring his body out of the basement, from where, it is said, no one came out alive.

“Sometimes I wish God reverses His clock so we can go inside and fetch our loved ones and bring them back home,” Saeeda wishes as she stares at the factory every other day when she leaves her house in Baldia Town to go work at the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF).

Over the years she has become a global icon for workers’ rights and the safety movement. This journey has taken her places: from the Bundestag (German federal parliament) to the United Nations, and she is regularly seen outside the Karachi Press Club in demonstrations held by labour, civil society and political groups.

“So far we’ve made considerable victories: from inspiring legislation for global supply chain accountability to movements for ethical clothing, but there is a lot more to achieve,” she says. “The real danger is still there. Ideally, the casualties in fire incidents should have stopped, but nothing has changed.”

According to the state, the factory was set on fire by a powerful and violent leadership of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement to teach the owners a lesson for not paying them extortion money. Nine men, including the then industries minister, are on trial in an anti-terrorism court, which is likely to conclude the matter soon.

Saeeda, however, holds the owners and the government responsible for the disaster as well. Her accusation stands on the belief that if adequate fire safety measures had been in place at the factory, many lives could have been saved. The University of London’s multidisciplinary research group Forensic Architecture corroborates her claim through a computer simulation of the fire.

As the families of the victims converge on the factory today to mark the eighth anniversary of the incident, which has also been dubbed the 9/11 of Pakistan, a film about their struggle (titled ‘Discount Workers’) will premiere at the One World Film Festival in Czech capital Prague.

Ammar Aziz, co-director of the Pakistani-German production, says he took inspiration from the fact that how the affected Karachiites from ordinary working class backgrounds embarked on this extraordinary struggle of justice against the European clothing brand KiK and the Italian auditing company RINA. “They didn't merely fight to get compensation, but also to advocate for thousands of other factories with similar working conditions,” he says.

“It wasn’t easy at times to hear all the stories of loss. It was traumatic. Our film, we hope, is not just about the miseries. It’s not poverty porn. It’s a story of an important struggle which has the potential to change things at countless inhuman workplaces in the country.”

Before the Ali Enterprises Fire Affectees Association came into being, the victims’ families ran from door to door for help and were defrauded. NTUF General Secretary Nasir Mansoor, who helped the victims organise themselves, thinks they have come of age to understand the system.

“The first thing they learnt is that seeking justice is the most difficult thing for people from the working class, not only here but in the entire world,” he says. “The second thing is that they now understand their struggle is futile without collective efforts.”