Italy’s Benetton to join fund for Rana Plaza victims

Italian fashion retailer Benetton will pay into a fund set up to compensate victims of the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 people, the company said on Friday. Benetton’s decision to contribute to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund came following a petition organized by international advocacy group Avaaz and containing more than 1 million signatures calling for such action. The Donors Trust Fund was set up to pool resources from a number of public institutions and private companies to compensate 5,000 people affected by the Rana Plaza disaster. Benetton earlier said it did not want to take part in compensation funds among companies that sourced clothes from the factory due to a “lack of clarity” around objectives and a lack of involvement by key stakeholders.