You can use this space to share and upload curricula ideas, lesson plans, visual aids, research and projects, or to just discuss the current happenings in the industry with respect to social issues and environmental concerns, as well as the latest trends in socially responsible design. “See” you in the Forum! Oh…and don’t forget to pick up your Social Alterations Badge! Visit Social Alterations
The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was August 23rd. To mark the occasion, the ILO (International Labour Organization) has launched a new book on forced labour, titled “Forced labor: Coercion and exploitation in the private economy.” You can download the book’s Executive Summary in English, Spanish or French, here. More than 200 years after a slave rebellion in the Caribbean sparked a movement that eventually led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12 million people around the world still work under coercion in forced labour, slavery and slavery-like practices....
How can education foster sustainable change toward socially responsible fashion and apparel design and manufacturing practices? Social Alterations hopes to foster socially responsible fashion design education through aggregating relevant material that will inspire fashion/textile and apparel instructors, researchers, designers and design enthusiasts to get on board with thinking about consequence in the industry. Sign up to the Social Alterations Forum if you’re interested in sharing and contributing ideas on curriculum, research, projects, materials, design, etc. with this community.
A new report out of the National Labor Committee today cites multiple human rights violations at the Muse Textile Ltd. garment factory in Al Hassan Industrial City, Irbid, Jordan. Human Trafficking Primitive Dorm Conditions Substandard Food Forced Overtime and Seven-Day Work Weeks A Failure to Communicate Check out the full report, as well as the Ministry of Labor Report from July 19th. These workers still have 11 months left on their contract. The NLC is calling for the factory to be brought up to international standards and Jordanian law of compliance immediately. Source: NLC
Oxfam Hong Kong has just launched a new guidebook for the garment industry titled Good Fashion: A Guide to Being an Ethical Clothing Company. Although they encourage the use of the guidebook for educational use, as well as for research, advocacy and campaign purposes, be sure to notify them if you are going to use the guidebook so that they may assess its impact. “As an active promoter of corporate social responsibility (CSR), Oxfam Hong Kong launches the first corporate social responsibility guidebook: Good Fashion: A Guide to Being an Ethical Clothing Company today. Good Fashion targets to...
New short film out of Amnesty International this week. Whether we like to admit it or not, there is a direct correlation between the fashion industry and torture. Social issues facing the industry today include: forced labour, child labour, harassment or abuse, nondiscrimination, health and safety, freedom of association and collective bargaining, wages and benefits, hours of work, overtime compensation (Workplace Code of Conduct, FLA). Source: Amnesty UK
The National Labor Committee released a report last week citing sweatshop conditions in a Guatemalan factory manufacturing clothing for Briggs New York (80%) and Lane Bryant (remaining 20%) clothing. If you don’t want to read the full article, here is the abstract: “Young Mayan women sew Briggs New York and Lane Bryant clothing under abusive and illegal sweatshop conditions at the Nicotex factory outside Guatemala City. Women in the U.S. are unknowingly purchasing clothing made by other women who are being exploited. All overtime at the Nicotex factory is mandatory, and 14 2/3-hour shifts, from 7:00...
I have been obsessed with U.K. designer Katharine Hamnett for a long time. In fact, it was her slogan t-shirts that first showed me that there was opportunity to transform this industry; she is the quintessential example of a pissed off designer who refuses to stand for the high human cost of fashion. She is dedicated to the promotion of organic cotton, and runs a strong campaign against the conventional ‘white gold’: “Conventional cotton represents 10% of world agriculture and uses 25% of the world’s pesticides. 100 million conventional cotton farmers, from Russia to South Africa, are living...
The first FIBERcast, featuring Dr. Marsha Dickson and Mr. Doug Cahn, took place today, February 23, 2008. The broadcast was hosted by Dr. Hye-Shin Kim, of the University of Delaware, and focused on “Social Responsibility in the Apparel Industry”. For those not following on Twitter, here are my live tweets of the event: searchable under #fibercast, #csr and #sr · Dr. Marsha Dickson # fibercast: monitoring become the standard, but often does not provide solutions. new book http://tinyurl.com/aqb85w about 2 hours ago · #fibercast problems are complex and widespread/freedom of association/forced labour/discrimination/child labour about 2 hours...
Many textile and apparel companies boast a commitment to operating within the legal frameworks of the countries in which they manufacture. It would seem only reasonable to expect as much (Congratulations! You didn’t break the law!). Considering the standard of human rights within such countries, should this fact be celebrated? December 10th marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this video, Basil Fernando, CEO of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), highlights the issue of “non-rule of law”. According to Fernando, the last 60 years of Human Rights has only worked to establish the...
