SWARTHMORE — Even as 33-year-old Kalpona Akter faces a potential death sentence in her home country of Bangladesh, she traveled halfway across the globe to talk about the working conditions in her homeland with the hope of creating an atmosphere of respect, dignity and a better life for her fellow citizens.

Aleya Akter, 26, journeyed with Kalpona to tell the tale of working 14 years of 11-hour days sewing jackets with 400 employees at a Dhaka factory for Walmart.

New Yorkers’ fierce fight to prevent Wal-Mart from setting up shop in the city is well-known. But meanwhile, other big-box stores are quietly opening without a murmur of protest, like an Aldi store that launched in Rego Park, Queens, in February.

“People say that somehow New York City should erect a wall against Wal-Mart,” said Greg David, director of the business and economics reporting program at the City University of New York. “But Home Depot, Target, Kohl’s, the warehouse stores, now Aldi, are in important ways just like Wal-Mart.”

Cynthia Murray and Robert Hines Jr. thought they had seen unfair treatment and bad working conditions at the Maryland Wal-Mart store and Chicago-area Wal-Mart warehouse where they worked, respectively. But they were floored to learn recently of the conditions workers in Bangladesh and other developing countries endure in the factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart.

NEW YORK — Tragic as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was, the most definitive moment of Thursday’s all-day symposium honoring its centennial was an impromptu exercise that reminded guests just how far removed they are from the factories that produce the clothes they wear.