Since I first saw this photo a few weeks ago, I can’t get it out of my mind. It’s the photo of a Bangladeshi couple sharing their last breaths under a pile of rubble. As you probably already know, an eight story garment factory building collapsed in Bangladesh this past April killing over 750 workers including this couple. We know very little about them but their embrace is sending a clear message: our lives matter. They are speaking louder in death than they ever could in life. In life, they were like many others like them, just cheap, replaceable labor but in this picture they are letting us know that their dreams, hopes and lives were anything but cheap. The fact that this is not the first time a tragedy like this one takes place is heart wrenching and reminds me each day why I do what I do and why my voice is so important.
Check out an excerpt from the original TIMEÂ story below and lend your voice to the fight against slave labor.
Shahidul Alam, Bangladeshi photographer, writer and founder of Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, said of the photo: “This image, while deeply disturbing, is also hauntingly beautiful. An embrace in death, its tenderness rises above the rubble to touch us where we are most vulnerable. By making it personal, it refuses to let go. This is a photograph that will torment us in our dreams. Quietly it tells us. Never again.
I have been asked many questions about the photograph of the couple embracing in the aftermath of the collapse. I have tried desperately, but have yet to find any clues about them. I don’t know who they are or what their relationship is with each other.
I spent the entire day the building collapsed on the scene, watching as injured garment workers were being rescued from the rubble. I remember the frightened eyes of relatives — I was exhausted both mentally and physically. Around 2 a.m., I found a couple embracing each other in the rubble. The lower parts of their bodies were buried under the concrete. The blood from the eyes of the man ran like a tear. When I saw the couple, I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I knew them — they felt very close to me. I looked at who they were in their last moments as they stood together and tried to save each other — to save their beloved lives.
Every time I look back to this photo, I feel uncomfortable — it haunts me. It’s as if they are saying to me, we are not a number — not only cheap labor and cheap lives. We are human beings like you. Our life is precious like yours, and our dreams are precious too.
They are witnesses in this cruel history of workers being killed. The death toll is now more than 750. What a harsh situation we are in, where human beings are treated only as numbers.
This photo is haunting me all the time. If the people responsible don’t receive the highest level of punishment, we will see this type of tragedy again. There will be no relief from these horrific feelings. I’ve felt a tremendous pressure and pain over the past two weeks surrounded by dead bodies. As a witness to this cruelty, I feel the urge to share this pain with everyone. That’s why I want this photo to be seen.”
If you agree, please SHARE this story. This cannot happen again!
Read more: TIME.
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