Bangladesh factory collapse: What can be done to prevent such tragedy in future?

Posted on May 8, 2013 by

The garment factory disaster on 24 April 2013 in Savar, Bangladesh has left more than 700 workers dead and many seriously injured with their limbs amputated.  No one knows how many are still missing (“Bangladesh building collapse death toll passes 700”, BBC News, 07 May 2013).  In 2005 a building collapsed in the same town, killing 64 garment workers (“Dhaka factory collapse: Can clothes industry change?” by Sabir Mustafa, BBC News Asia, 25 April 2013).  In addition, hundreds of apparel workers died in fire in recent years.  Why has the garment industry in Bangladesh been plagued by so many disasters?

It was reported that the recently collapsed 8-story building, housing five factories where more than 3,000 people had been employed, had originally been built as a 5-story shopping mall.  However, the building owner had not only used it to house factories but also added three more floors illegally, which municipal engineers had approved (“Dhaka death trap fears follow fatal collapse”, Aljazeera, 06 May 2013).  In the case of the fire last Nov. in which 117 workers had perished, they had found the exit doors to the factory locked, “prompting some to leap to their deaths from the burning building”.  That building was reported to have lost the fire safety certification months earlier (“Bangladesh factory disaster:  How culpable are Western companies?” by Brian Montopoli, CBS News, April 26, 2013), but continued to operate.

The ILO has been at the forefront in promoting international labour standards in the form of ILO Conventions, covering a host of employment and work-related issues.  Its member countries are urged to ratify Conventions, and once they have ratified any of them, they are obliged to enforce them nationally by enacting or revising relevant national laws in line with the Conventions they have ratified.

One such Convention relevant to the latest disaster in Bangladesh is Convention No. 81 concerning Labour Inspection in Industry and Commerce, which the country ratified in 1972(NORMLEX, ILO database).  It aims to secure “the enforcement of the legal provisions relating to conditions of work and the protection of workers while engaged in their work, such as provisions relating to hours, wages, safety, health and welfare”.  Therefore, most of the horrific factory accidents in Bangladesh could have been prevented and many lives spared if the provisions in the Convention had been applied adequately through proper inspection.

Ratifying a Convention is one thing, while applying it is another matter, however.  This is particularly so in developing countries where certain industries have grown so rapidly as a result of massive foreign investment against the backdrop of increased globalization.  The Bangladeshi garment industry has expanded exponentially in recent decades that it now employs about 4 million workers, mostly women, who earn approximately US$40 per month.  This industry has become the pillar of the industrial sector in the country, its total production amounting to more than US$ 15 billion in the fiscal year 2012-2013, constituting 80% of its exports (“Analysis” by Mark Doyle, BBC International Development Correspondent, BBC News Asia, 30 April 2013).

Today, while there are more than 4,000 garment factories operating in the district near Dhaka, which is the center of the garment industry in Bangladesh, only 18 labour inspectors are reported to be monitoring workplaces there (Montopoli, op. cit).  However, the problem is not just the grossly inadequate number of inspectors who may also lack technical capacity to conduct proper inspection.  I suspect that many of the factories have been off-limits to inspectors as they have enjoyed special protection in exchange for creating much needed jobs and helping the country earn foreign exchange.

Factories that have been set up in industrial parks and export processing zones (EPZs) in developing countries, with a large share held by foreign investors, have been known to enjoy extraterritorial rights and privileges.  Investors are attracted to any given country for its strategic location and advantageous cost of production, including cheap labour, but they would consider relocating to elsewhere as soon as the cost of production goes up.  So in order to keep investors satisfied, some influential figures in host countries would do anything possible to keep the production cost low.  This is done by severely restricting workers’ rights or even compromising with the safety and health of workers by keeping EPZs off-limits to inspectors.

If conscientious host government officials try to apply legal provisions in protection of workers, they may be threatened by investors that they would move out to another country.  If conscientious employers offer their employees the kind of working conditions that the workers in other factories in the same EPZ may find envious, the other investors/employers might find such employers annoying or as bad influence in the EPZ.  I heard stories like that in Sri Lanka while being posted as the ILO representative for three years from January 1998.  There, too, the garment industry was the most important foreign exchange earner.  Despite that the country had ratified Convention 81 back in 1956, inspectors had literally been locked out of the EPZs where such factories were mainly located, and were prevented from doing their work.

EPZs in Sri Lanka are administered by the Board of Investment (BOI), then a part of the Ministry of Finance.  Thus, the ILO organized a series of meetings with BOI and Ministry of Labour officials on how to facilitate labour inspection in EPZs.  After painstaking negotiations, the BOI finally agreed to allow an inspector to be posted within the EPZ outside Colombo, and later in another EPZ elsewhere.  National laws should be applicable to all sectors and locations within its territory, unless specific sectors are exempted for valid reasons.  Inspectors should be able to go into any work premises without restrictions to do their job.  Though no disaster like those reported in Bangladesh occurred in the Sri Lankan garment factories during my tenure there, the inspection system in the country was still very much desired.

The ILO promotes international labour standards through its tripartite mechanism in each member country, where the government and the representative employers’ and workers’ organizations are members of the ILO on equal footing.  However, another difficulty I faced with regard to EPZs while serving in Sri Lanka was that the Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters’ Association (SLAEA), the influential employers’ organization representing the garment industry, was not affiliated with the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, the employer member of the ILO.  This made it almost impossible in those days for the ILO to reach out to the members of the SLAEA on issues concerned to the ILO.

No one should be forced to become a member of any organization.  At the same time, no employer should be able to avoid respecting fundamental human rights and the safety and health of his/her workers guaranteed by national laws in line with international labour standards, of which the government is a signatory.  This should be so even his/her factory is located in an EPZ or even if he/she is not affiliated with the representative employers’ organization, which is an ILO member.

The role of any government is to protect its citizens, including workers.  When a government fails to do so, the outside world has a moral obligation to act, especially if it is benefitting from the situation where workers are being exploited without adequate safety and health protection.  International retailers sourcing from such a country and making huge profits and consumers in richer countries benefitting from cheap clothes readily available in shops cannot surely be indifferent to the plight of the workers concerned.

After the disaster in Dhaka, the ILO sent a high-level mission to Bangladesh with the intention to develop, together with its tripartite members, the Bangladesh safety plan, to make the garment industry safer and sustainable (ILO Press release, 29 April 2013).  No action plan can change the situation overnight, however.  It requires a long process of attitudinal change and training on all parties concerned.  The government must take a clear position that its legal provisions apply in its entire territory and ensure that inspectors be adequately trained to do their job.  Employers must not treat workers only as a means to gain maximum profit; they are responsible for providing them with safe and healthy work environment as well as training.  Workers are also expected to play an important role in keeping their work place safe by participating in such training.  Since no country would ever have an adequate number of inspectors to cover all work places, safety and health can be secured only through sound industrial relations, and this can be achieved only by respecting fundamental human rights guaranteed by international labour standards.

While ILO plan of action would be indispensable for long-term strategies in making the industry safer and sustainable, it may not give enough pressure on powerful government figures and employers who have ignored workers’ rights thus far to act quickly, unless it has immediate financial impact on them.  The EU is reported to be contemplating an “appropriate action to encourage an improvement in working conditions in Bangladesh factories” by reconsidering “the use of its trade preference system, which gives Bangladesh duty- and quota-free access to markets in member states” (BBC News, 07 May 2013, op. cit.).  Such a measure would give a powerful signal to the employers and retailers sourcing from the country, but I hope it would be applicable to all countries concerned that are exporting clothes to EU.  Otherwise, it would simply encourage them to move to elsewhere where human rights and safety and health laws are ignored, and thus similar tragedy could be repeated.

The NGOs such as Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), Fair Labor Association (FLA), Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), Social Accountability International (SAI) and Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)) active in corporate accountability can also be an effective instrument in transforming the garment industry in Bangladesh and elsewhere.  They work in partnership with trade unions and international retailers to ensure that the clothes being sourced from developing countries have been manufactured in factories where worker rights and safety and health are respected.   In today’s media-frenzy world, consumers can also send out a powerful but negative message against any retailer if they find it to be doing business with employers with no respect for workers’ basic human rights.  Even a well-established company can have its image severely damaged if it is portrayed as ruthless and non-law abiding.  We must avoid sensationalism in this respect, but in partnership with all stakeholders and through a proper mechanism for monitoring corporate social responsibility, we should be able to help the industry become safer and sustainable.

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Essay: Japan: The worst developed country for women?

Posted on March 31, 2013 by

The article entitled “Japan: The worst developed country for mothers?” caught my attention when I was looking at the BBC News website (See the article posted by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes of BBC News, Tokyo, on 22 March 2013) the other day.  The headline did not shock me though, as I had already come across articles and reports presenting similar views, and the figures the journalist cited from different government sources to make his point seemed convincing.  As a Japanese woman myself, however, I felt sad reading it.

Earlier, I had believed that the social status of the Japanese women had to have risen in the last three decades, during which time I had worked and lived mainly in Europe.  Each time I had come home on holiday during those years, I had seen new office buildings having been built where I had believed more women coming out of institutions of higher learning had been absorbed with greater opportunities and responsibilities than what the women of earlier generations had enjoyed.  I had believed that women must have advanced socio-economically, particularly after the enactment in 1985 of the Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Law, which made it unlawful to discriminate anyone on account of being a woman, with respect to recruitment, transfer, promotion, vocational training, fringe benefits, retirement and dismissal.

I believe that women in any country are just as capable as men are if they are accorded similar encouragement and opportunities as men.  In fact, I have known a number of Japanese women who have performed or are performing well in their respective professions.  However, I realize that the status of women in my country as a whole is still very much to be desired compared with those in many other countries.

This is illustrated in the Global Gender Gap Report published annually since 2006 by the World Economic Forum, which presents the “global gender gap index”.  It tries to “capture the magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities.”  It is “designed to measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in individual countries, rather than the actual levels of the available resources and opportunities in those countries.”  It is calculated in such a way to make it “independent from the countries’ levels of development”.  Moreover, it “evaluates countries based on outcomes, rather than inputs”, and the evaluation is carried out in the areas of (1) economic participation and opportunity, (2) educational attainment, (3) health and survival, and (4) political empowerment.

According to the global gender gap index rankings presented in the 2012 report, Japan came in 101st out of the 135 countries examined.  What I found sad was that my country had been ranked 80th in 2006, and rather than improving gradually thereafter, it has lowered its ranking in the world.  The only other OECD countries that were ranked lower than Japan in 2012 were the Republic of Korea (108th) and Turkey (124th).  Many high-income OECD countries came within the top 25.  Interestingly, though, the top 25 also included the countries such as the Philippines (8th), Nicaragua (9th), Lesotho (14th), South Africa (16th) and Cuba (19th), which indicated the independence of the index from the level of economic development.

Another set of data I came across last year which would support the point made by Wingfield-Hayes showed women’s shares among upper management and company board members in Asia (see “Women managers in Asia: Untapped talent” in the Economist, July 7th 2012, p.59.).  Among the ten Asia-Pacific countries and areas presented in the bar chart, the Japanese women’s share comprising about two percent among company board members and about one percent among executive committee members was the worst.  Australia was ranked at the top (more than 12% among board members and 12% among executive committee members), followed by Hong Kong (about 9% and just under 11%, respectively), China (nearly 8% and 9%), Taiwan (almost 8% and 9%), and Singapore (approximately 7% and 15%).  In the West, women usually made up 10-20% of senior managers and company board members, according to the article.

The reasons for the low level of women among top executives mentioned in the article included the “double burden of work and domestic responsibilities”, senior managers having to be available to travel frequently, and the “scarcity of female role models”.  These obstacles against women’s advancement were found both in Europe and Asia.  The difference, the article points out, is that in Asia women face additional hurdles, such as the shortage of child care facilities and that very few senior managers are sympathetic to the reality faced by women and do not see “gender diversity as a strategic priority”.

Referring to the obstacles faced by the Japanese women, Wingfield-Hayes cites that Japanese husbands spend only one hour a day, on average, to help out with children and household chores, while their counterparts in Sweden, Germany and the United States spend about three hours.  Moreover, while Japanese men are entitled to take paternity leave, only 2.6% take it for the fear that taking it might jeopardize their future promotion or job security.  In addition, the shortage of affordable child-care facilities to meet working mothers’ needs can wane their desire to keep working, and he says that these are the reasons why 70% of women in Japan quit working after becoming mothers.

Social progress is frustratingly slow, but the Japanese men can no longer afford to remain feudalistic and chauvinistic in their attitudes toward women and on sharing household responsibilities when the world around them is changing and adapting to new environment at an ever increasing speed.  Women should also be more assertive in claiming their rights protected by law and in demanding social services required for them to fulfill their own dreams and aspirations in life.  Faced with the rapidly ageing population with one of the lowest birth rates in the world, resulting in shrinking workforce, Japan can no longer afford to waste women’s talent if it is to remain a viable economic power.

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Gender Gap in Pay

Posted on March 13, 2013 by

According to the report released on the 21st of Feb. 2013 by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, the gap in the average earnings between full-time men and women workers in the country had narrowed consecutively during the last two years.  The results show that women’s earnings reached 70.9% of men’s, and this was the second straight year that their earnings reached above 70% of that of male workers.  The survey had targeted only full time workers, however, in workplaces with 10 or more employees and had examined only their regular salary, without taking into account of overtime pay and bonus.  In total, 49,230 establishments had responded to the survey (“Danjo no kyuuyosa ga shukushou (narrowing the salary gap between men and women)” in Asahi Shinmbun, 22 Feb. 2013, morning edition).

Knowing how much lower women workers’ average hourly wages in Japan have been for a long time compared with those of men, I was surprised but content to note that they seem to be slowly but definitely gaining the ground in equality in pay.  A long ago when I carried out a study in the ILO comparing hourly wages of men and women workers in selected manufacturing industries in selected countries for two decades (See S. Tomoda:  Women Workers in Manufacturing, 1971-91, ILO, 1995), I was appalled to learn that Japanese women workers were earning only about 50-60% of what their male colleagues did, and even less than 50% in certain sub-sectors.

I realize that any statistical data have to be carefully checked and compared before drawing any conclusion.  While noting that these studies were carried out entirely in different time frame, covering different sectors, I should stress that the survey by the Ministry examined only the fixed salary of full-time workers, while the study I conducted based on ILO’s Year Books of Labour Statistics considered all kinds of earnings of both full-time and part-time workers.  I should also point out that a large number of women workers in Japan are employed as non-regular workers, including part-time workers, and they were not included in this survey.  Furthermore, what should be stressed is that many non-regular workers in Japan work as many hours as their full-time colleagues do, without any fringe benefits that full-time workers are entitled to.  So I wonder what kind of figures the Ministry would have obtained in terms of gender gap in pay if part-time workers working long hours had also been included in the latest survey.

Recently, I was also surprised to learn about another figure on gender gap in pay in another country.  France 2, a French television station, reported in its evening news programme broadcast on the 8th of March that according to the data just released by the INSEE (L’Institute National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques), French women on average were earning 28% less than men were.  I was astonished by this figure because they were earning about 77% of men’s in 1971 in terms of hourly wages in manufacturing and it increased to 78.9% by 1991.  Considering these figures, I had imagined that their wages would have improved much further by now.

Statistical information is useful in obtaining a picture of a certain aspect of whatever it is supposed to portray.  However, we have to be clear about what the figures stand for and how, where and when they have been obtained to better understand what is on the surface as well as the underlying reality.

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Essay: When in Rome, do as the Romans do!

Posted on October 29, 2012 by

In the middle of this past September my friend from Tokyo and I visited Grindelwald, our favorite Swiss resort, popular among visitors from all over the world, to enjoy a few days’ of hiking.  We had a　delightful view of Wetterhorn, Mettenberg, Finsteraarhorn and Eiger from our fifth-floor room and balcony, and as we hiked from Grosse Scheidegg to First, the spectacular panorama of these mountains joined by the majestic Moench and Jungfrau spread before our enchanted eyes.  Though the area had had a stormy weather till the day before our arrival, we were lucky to have been blessed with a clear blue sky and abundant sunshine throughout our stay in this heavenly alpine town.

One evening we decided to eat out.  When we stepped out of the elevator into the corridor leading to the spacious lobby of the hotel, we looked at each other in astonishment.  A man was walking in front of us while talking on his mobile phone, but he was wearing his pajamas!  We noted from the language he was speaking that he was a member of the Chinese tour group staying in the same hotel as we were.

We used to see very few travelers from the mainland China in the past in any touristic sites in Europe and especially in Swiss mountain resorts.  These days, however, they in large organized tour groups can be spotted everywhere where tourists flock as their country enjoys rapid economic development and holidays abroad have become affordable to an increasing number of its citizens.  I am happy that many of them can now enjoy trips abroad and have the opportunities to take glimpses of how people in other countries live.  As Japanese travelers beginning to go abroad about half a century ago did, new visitors from China appear to experience similar cultural gaps in the West.

Looking at the Chinese man in his pajamas in the hotel lobby, I remembered the travelogue by a Japanese author I read in the early 1960s, in which he wrote about his misadventure in the United States in the 1950s.  If I remember correctly, he was put into a mental institution briefly after getting caught while wandering in an American hotel lobby in his night clothes.  In traditional Japanese inns, all guests are provided with a cotton kimono called yukata, which they wear when going to sleep.  It is also perfectly acceptable for yukata-clad guests to walk around not only within their hotel premises but even to stroll outside.  Because of this custom in Japan, the author had probably thought nothing of going to the lobby in his pajamas.  In those days, few Americans must have had good understanding of cultural differences between the East and the West, so the people in the lobby must have been horrified to find a Japanese man roaming around in a public area in his night clothes.  The man probably had a poor English skill in explaining why he thought it was all right to be out there in that outfit, which unfortunately resulted in his getting confined in an asylum, even for a brief moment.

When we came back to the hotel after dinner, the man in his pajamas was no longer in the lobby.  We did not know what had happened to him; he had probably gone to sleep.  We were quite sure though that he had not been taken to a mental hospital as the hotel staff at the reception had not reacted to his appearance.  They seemed to have been totally unaffected by his pajamas.  Nothing might surprise them as they have probably seen all kinds of tourists behaving differently due to their varied cultural backgrounds.

I wondered how American hotel staff these days would react to such a situation.  Perhaps, they, too, would have ignored the man as he was decently covered, for they must have also encountered by now all kinds of tourists from abroad.  I appreciate the increasing level of social tolerance towards people behaving a bit differently, but the useful advice for any travelers to different cultural settings is still that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

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Essay: National Wealth and Happiness

Posted on August 17, 2012 by

Recently, I came across an interesting article entitled “the real wealth of nations” (The Economist, June 30th 2012, p. 75), reviewing the voluminous study, “Inclusive Wealth Report 2012”, published a few months ago by the United Nations.  To date, economists have tended to assess and compare the wealth of nations in terms of GDP, which, the article claims, is not about wealth or a stock of assets, but a “measure of income” based on “a flow of goods and services”.

The article claims that a nation’s wealth should include its natural resources, skilled workforce, as well as the infrastructure it has built up.  Until now, however, there has been no widely accepted “monetary measure” to evaluate “this stock of natural, human and physical assets”.  Thus, this new UN report is the first to attempt to present the balance sheets of the “inclusive wealth” of 20 selected nations which are based on 2008 data.  It evaluated three kinds of asset: “manufactured or physical capital (machinery, buildings, infrastructure, etc.), human capital (the population’s education and skills) and natural capital (including land, forests, fossil fuels and minerals)”.

Government officials often assert that their human resource is the most important national asset, and this was true in 17 out of the 20 countries examined.  The calculation of the human capital of a nation was based on its population’s “average years of schooling, the wage its workforce can command and the number of years they can expect to work before they retire or die”.  Human capital represented as much as 88% of its wealth of the United Kingdom and 75% of the United States.

According to the UN report, the United States topped the list of the countries in 2008 with inclusive wealth of $117.8 trillion, which was “over ten times its GDP that year”, followed by Japan with $55.1 trillion and China with $20.0 trillion.  However, Japan’s per capita inclusive wealth was the highest, at more than $400,000, followed by the United States with less than $400,000.

For someone like me, born in Japan when it was still occupied by the US, following its total destruction and defeat in WWII, I am surprised to see such figures.  By the time I started going to school, my country had regained its independence, but people were still struggling very hard to make ends meet.  As a child, whatever I read or heard about the US, –though information was sometimes erroneous, and compared with my tiny country, situated at the edge of the Far East on the world map, –gave me a strong impression of the might and wealth that nation had.

One such incident to illustrate my feeling of awe, and which I still remember vividly, took place in a geography class at my elementary school.  We were learning about world agricultural production.  Our teacher informed us the US was the major producer of corn, then added that it was produced mainly for animal feed, and not for human consumption.  The only type of corn I knew of at the time was that eaten by Japanese people, so his word left me with a powerful image of America as being far richer than my country.  After all, we ate, I had just learned, what animals in America were being fed.  When I arrived in the US years later and saw people eating corn, I came to know that both peoples indeed consumed sweet corn, while animals were fed a different sort.  Nevertheless, seeing Americans living in bigger houses, driving huge cars and shopping in gigantic supermarkets, for a long time I could not help retaining the image of them being far wealthier than us.

Realizing how far my country had to rise from the ashes of total destruction after WWII to catch up with the US in terms of per capita inclusive wealth, I am amazed by our achievement.  However, inclusive wealth does not necessarily reflect people’s sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in life.  True, wealth can provide us with a certain amount of emotional security and contentment, but it does not seem to be the key to people’s happiness.  This is illustrated in the World Happiness Report, another recently published UN study, which shows that peoples of many poorer countries feel happier and more satisfied with life than those in Japan and the US do.

Happiness is a subjective measure and difficult to quantify, but most of us strive for self-contentment as the ultimate goal in life.  In this sense, both Japan and the US still have a lot of work to do to achieve real and sustainable wealth and happiness their people can fully appreciate with their heart, mind and body.

Posted in Economic development, Happiness, Humour, Multicultural, National wealth, Philosophy, skills training | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Essay: Donkeys and Asses

Posted on July 13, 2012 by

I had dozed off in the middle of an evening news program and woke up to find it was still on and watched part of a report on a growing number of neglected and suffering donkeys that had been rescued and were being cared for in sanctuaries set up by animal welfare groups (such as the ones in UK and New Zealand).  It would appear there are hundreds of thousands of donkeys and mules throughout the world, abandoned by their rural owners because they are no longer useful in areas undergoing modernization.

These animals have lived side by side with human beings for thousands of years, engaging in agricultural work or transporting heavy loads to ease the burden of their keepers.  Although economic development has been slow to reach villages in developing countries, even remote rural areas are now experiencing the gradual introduction of new technology, such as tractors and motorized vehicles.  Apparently, this slow wave of mechanization is making more donkeys redundant.  Many are also reported to be in poor health after years of neglect and the harsh exigency of being made to carry heavy loads, putting them at high risk of being abandoned, as their owners are unable to provide them with proper care.  I find it sad to see them end their lives this way after years of hard work.

This news story brought back a memory of more than 25 years earlier concerning donkeys.  A few years before, I had joined UN’s specialized agency in Geneva handling labor matters and had just transferred to a branch responsible for population and employment issues.  One day the secretariat of the Director General (DG) forwarded a letter it had received to someone more senior than I was who was working on rural employment issues, asking him to draft a response on behalf of the DG.

The letter, from a group engaged in the protection of working donkeys, stated that the health of millions of donkeys throughout the world was deteriorating because they were subjected to harsh working conditions without adequate food and rest.  It said that since the livelihood of millions of rural people depended on the work of these animals, maintaining them in healthy conditions was of the utmost importance for those concerned.  It concluded by asking for a financial contribution from our organization so that it could conduct research on the reality of working donkeys.

I do not know how the official drafted the reply, but it must have been a negative response, given the fact that our organization had never been a funding agency.  Additionally, he would probably have confirmed the mandate of our organization, which was to promote social justice in the human world of work, not covering working animals.  He would have feared that once we made even a tiny contribution to such a group, there would soon be similar requests from those who were concerned with other working animals (like elephants, horses, bulls, etc.) and there would be no end to it.

Before sitting down to draft the reply, I do recall him uttering mischievously that there were enough “asses” to worry about in our own house, and that our limited funds would not go far enough to reach donkeys out there.  I did not know what he meant by “asses” or what people he was referring to.  As there were too many working human beings requiring protection under international labor standards, it was understandable that the organization had to concentrate on their issues.

Still, almost all of us become both workers and employers at different stages in life.  If we expect justice and compassion as workers, we should also be humane and kind to others, and this includes working animals, especially if they have worked faithfully in making our lives more comfortable and enjoyable.  Those who have benefited from the work and contribution of such animals should at least have a bigger heart and see to it that they have a decent end.

Posted in animal protection, Labour issues, Multicultural, occupation, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Essay: Euthanasia for Tomi

Posted on June 27, 2012 by

One month has passed since I sent Tomi, my female feline companion for the last 18 years, off on her new journey.  She was put to sleep because she was suffering from kidney failure.

Prior to her falling critically ill, I had been away for three weeks, during which time she was well looked after at the chatterie, where she had always stayed whenever I was away on mission or holiday.  It was like her second home, as she knew its owner and its staff well.  When I went to pick her up on my return, she looked as healthy as ever.  She had apparently eaten normally during her stay there and had a fairly good appetite after coming home.

One thing I noticed though after bringing her home this time was that she was much more affectionate toward me than usual.  At night, she had been used to sleep on my bed around where my feet were.  This time, in the middle of the night, I found her asleep with her body pressed against my head and her little head on my pillow.  I took it as a sign that she had missed me terribly while she was at the cat pension, so I gently stroked her a few times.

After our happy reunion everything seemed to have returned to normal.  However, the next day, she stopped eating, except for tiny pieces of tuna sashimi, her favorite food, which I fed into her mouth with my fingers while holding her.  Four days later, she stopped drinking water and soon her litter box stayed completely dry.

During these six days, I took her for three blood tests, the results of which indicated that her blood sugar level either dropped or increased sharply and erratically.  The vet was trying to ascertain the new dose of insulin she should receive, instead of the amount she had been getting every morning and evening over the last two-and-a-half years.  Sadly, the final blood test showed that her kidneys had stopped functioning altogether.  So he had no choice but to recommend that she be put to sleep as soon as possible so as to end her suffering.

Although overwhelmed with the immense sadness of having to terminate Tomi’s precious life –she had lived with me longer than anyone else, including my parents –I immediately accepted the vet’s decision.  When I had faced a similar situation with my male cat, Malice (see the essay, “Euthanasia for Malice” on my blog of June 2011) almost a year earlier, I had not accepted his decision immediately and prolonged Malice’s life by one day, which regrettably had made him suffer needlessly.  This time, I was able to decide quickly based on what was the best for Tomi.

Considering that Tomi became seriously ill only one day after coming home, I have been wondering if her diabetic and kidney condition had deteriorated gradually while I was away.  It is possible that animals may have the ability to foresee their own death, that she had known that her life would soon come to an end in view of her age and her physical condition, and that despite her deteriorating situation, she was determined to sustain herself long enough, rather than leave this world, to say good-bye properly to me?  If that was the case, I am so grateful to her for having waited for my return, for having allowed me to spend her final days with her, and for having made it possible for me to send her off on her new journey while holding her.

After adopting her from the animal shelter nearby home and our having been together for 18 years, including three years in Sri Lanka, I am now slowly getting used to not having her around or to greet me at the door when I come home.  She has given me so much love and comfort and has left me with so many heart-warming memories I will cherish for years to come.  Thank you, Tomi.

Posted in animal behavior, Cat, Euthanasia, Memoir | Tagged , , | 4 Comments