The ever-excellent Ethical Fashion Forum has decided to run the fourth SOURCE Expo, a trade show for ethical sourcing, online. What’s even more interesting is that their seminars (webinars) are free to attend!! This promises to be a very interesting event for both designers and consumers interested in learning more about responsible fashion. What an amazing opportunity to hear information directly from those working in the field, but space is limited so sign up now!
Webinar details: October 31st will cover “The Issues” and include webinars covering Innovation, Changing lives, Environmental impact and Sustainable textiles showcase. November 1st is dedicated to “Fabrics and Suppliers” with the following webinars taking place: Artisanal excellence; Luxury, structure, stretch, drape and flow; Wools and heavyweights; Casualwear, large quantities and printing; Accessories and components.
Details for each webinar, including the time, can be found here.
The Social Alterations team is constantly coming across interesting content from a wide variety of sources. This is a curated selection of thought provoking reading we’ve done in the past month related to responsible fashion.
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§ Bangladesh’s garment sector woes made the New York Times twice in the last two months (granted, the first article was not published in September but it is very relevant and I highly recommend it):
“As Bangladesh garment workers have seen their meager earnings eroded by double-digit inflation, protests and violent clashes with the police have become increasingly common (NY Times).”
“The murder of a labor organizer bore a grim familiarity in a country with a brutal legacy of politically motivated killings (NY Times).”
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§ It’s September and you know what that means in Uzbekistan. Once again, we see a mass mobilization of the Uzbek population to pick cotton. The Washington Times published an update on this year’s cotton harvest. We’ve covered this topic before on SA and we’ve also included Uzbekistan as the first station in our SAGE module where we also highlight the impact of the cotton industry on the Aral Sea. Vice places this into a wider context discussing the political implications of water scarcity in Central Asia.
“Uzbekistan’s prime minister pledged last month to end child labor in the country’s cotton fields. But as the harvest season gets under way, human rights activists say children as young as 13 are being put to work under grueling conditions, despite extreme measures to recruit adult labor (The Washington Post).”
“[A] new kind of conflict is rising in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan that could eventually lead to the first water war of the 21st century (Vice).”
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§ In textile news, FastCompany writes about the startup Modern Meadow and the possibility of lab-grown leather which takes BioCouture to a whole new level. Is this the sustainable alternative to today’s vegan leather?
“Modern Meadow–a lab-grown meat startup–is getting closer and closer to growing leather in a test tube. But that’s just the beginning. Why grow regular leather when you can use your lab to make leather better? (FastCompany, Co.Exist)”
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§ Speaking of vegan shoes, EcoSalon has decided to take a closer look at Melissa Shoes. Their conclusions closely resemble ours posted three years ago here & here.
“Melissa shoes are widely assumed to be eco-friendly. However, they are made from PVC, which is widely known to be one of the most environmentally unfriendly plastics (EcoSalon).”
§ And of course, everyone likes money, money, money! TreeHugger does not disappoint in this post on industry stats, but along with the economics of fashion, TH provide a small glimpse into the social aspects so often ignored….all with links to learn more!
The Six Items Challenge kicks off again in 19 days! The challenge begins on September 7th, overlaps with London Fashion Week (September 14th-18th), and concludes on October 7th which just happens to be World Day For Decent Work. How fitting!
The challenge:
It’s quite simple. Just pick six items from your wardrobe (not including workout gear, undergarments, socks, shoes, and accessories) and wear only those items for one month. I’ve attached a few photos of some of the items chosen by previous participants. Click on the photos to read more about their choices.
Why?
The goal of the Six Item Challenge is to bring awareness to the consequences of our fast-paced trend-driven cycles of fashion consumerism. Labour Behind the Label explains:
If you would like to take this challenge a step further, you can also get sponsored for your efforts and help raise funds to support garment workers fighting for their rights. The fundraising website can be found here.
If you’d like to know more about the challenge, check out their website where they have a great blog featuring posts from the previous cycle of participants and a hints and tips page to help you get started. Good luck with the challenge!
In December, news came out that the organic cotton fair trade program in Burkina Faso is not all it’s cracked up to be. There was a flurry of twitter activity against Victoria’s Secret since they buy most of the cotton from this program. And, in the interest of full disclosure, SA was one of those with input on the case both on our twitter feed and on our fb page:
Social Alterations tweets on the Burkina Faso cotton issue
In response to this activity, Professor Chris MacDonald [from the ever-excellent The Business Ethics Blog] wrote an article in Canadian Business Magazine entitled Victoria’s Secret and child labour. In it he made some great points about:
a) the complexity of supply chains:
“The case of Victoria’s Secret’s cotton supply illustrates a clear failure of third-party supply-chain monitoring, but it is also an illustration of the complexity of that monitoring. It’s a lovely idea to promise your customers organic, fair-trade cotton, but making good on the promise is another thing altogether.”
b) the importance of context:
“The fundamental problem, though—the one that makes the life of a parentless child in Burkina Faso so miserable—is that Burkina Faso is a miserably poor country.”
and,
c) paying more does not always translate to better conditions:
“Pouring more money into a supply chain has complex effects…paying more for something draws more people into the business, which increases supply, which drives down prices. Note also that if VS customers are willing to pay more for the cotton in their panties, that inevitably means they’re spending less money on something else—and spending less on something else means someone else, somewhere, is earning less money.”
He also concludes that:
“The sad truth is that for some kids there, labour in the cotton fields is their best alternative; their families can’t really afford to feed them, let alone to send them to school. This is why I say that while child labour is always bad, it’s not always wrong.”
Further arguing that companies may avoid Burkina Faso’s cotton to keep their hands clean of this issue or the ‘child labour’ rules may even be enforced which would leave child labourers struggling to survive.
Clarisse left transporting cotton to a store house. Copyright: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg.
Some really interesting stuff and in light of the allegations by Fair Trade International that Cam Simpson, Bloomberg’s reporter, staged the whole thing, this story got much more complicated and attention shifted to the accusations instead of the debate on child labour.
I agree with Chris MacDonald’s arguments, including the one about child labour being bad but not always wrong. But, the thing that was missing from this story is a focus on context and understanding that one cannot superimpose global [sometimes Western] normative standards over local norms and expect them to be adopted and prevail. I don’t have issues with child labour if and only if children have legal protection and are working in safe conditions free from fear, with the freedoms given to all workers and the special rights drafted in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Realistically, the world doesn’t work that way. Most of the countries where children are working do not have the governance capacity to ensure the safety and legal protection of full grown workers let alone children. We are also talking about a normative environment that socializes its members to view child labour under such conditions as acceptable. Look at the Bloomberg article’s section on Kamboule, Clarisse’s guardian and cousin:
What Bloomberg is describing sounds like a practice that has been institutionalized in Burkina Faso. I mean, they have a name for a child in Clarisse’s situation and it has occurred through at least two generations. But the description given by Bloomberg would have you believe that it’s a thinly veiled excuse for child trafficking.
When I saw the term describing Clarisse as Kamboule’s enfant confie and later read that he himself was also an enfant confie, I realized that this is a well entrenched social practice. When I did some quick research on enfant confie, I couldn’t find anything in English, so I did a search in French and what I learned is that the understanding of ‘family’ in West Africa is not limited to the direct family or even the extended family. It includes the community. Traditionally, this practice, enfant confie, is not exactly adoption; it includes a social and educational aspect. The children are entrusted to their guardians with the goal of improving their access to education and participating in a form of apprenticeship. In the process, the practice helps to strengthen familial solidarity and the social bonds of kinship. However, socio-economic conditions have a great impact on social practices so it’s important to try to understand the root causes and the consequences of enfant confie as it is practiced today.
When organizations try to embed global standards into a new context, it’s important to take into account the social practices that already exist in the country and try to imagine how local practices would influence outcomes. So, when stories like this emerge, we need to suppress our judgement and look beyond the surface. Victoria’s Secret got a lot flack for this story, but at the end of the day, I think it’s a shame that the real lesson was not learned: ‘global’ norms and standards are not exactly ‘global’. They enter into different countries with different conditions and are filtered through a local normative lens. People in these countries are acting within their own paradigms. Our job is to try to understand these paradigms and then work within them to slowly push for real change. Any action that aims to simply transplant a ‘global’ norm or standard into a local context without any adjustment to fit this local context is bound to fail.
Although we may not post as often as we’d like to, Mary and I are committed to responsible fashion education under a creative commons license. Unfortunately, our full time jobs keep us from devoting our full attention to our passion. We are both working to make Social Alterations a worthwhile endeavor that is both intellectually stimulating and financially sustainable. Thank you for all your support over the years! From me in Hong Kong and Mary in Vancouver, we wish you a truly heartfelt happy new year!
Vancouver, Photo by Richard G (EDeadPixel), flickr.com
The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art have created an online exhibit that features highlights from their 2005 exhibit entitled Style and Status: Imperial Costumes from Ottoman Turkey. The online exhibit is beautifully curated with interactive close ups of the costumes that are so detailed you can actually see the fabric grain. What’s so special about the Ottoman Empire? According to the press release in 2005:
If you are an educator and would like to incorporate this amazing online resource into your lessons, you can get some ideas from the resource for educators with a 4-part classroom activity that accompanies the exhibit.
UPDATE: Sweaters for Skeinz have reached critical mass! If your still keen to knit a sweater, contact the organizations directly (information below) to make sure they are still in demand.
As you may have heard, there’s been a devastating accident and subsequent oil spill off the coast of Tauranga in New Zealand. This is pretty devastating as the environmental impact is huge! Sometimes in these situations, it feels like since we’re so far away, all we can do is watch totally helpless! But, it turns out, there is something we can do. There’s been a call by Skeinz.com for people to help the blue penguins affected by the oil spill by knitting them some little sweaters. Apparently, the sweaters help keep the penguins warm while they recover from the health impacts of being coated by toxic oil. It also help to stop them from preening themselves thereby preventing them for ingesting said oil. Once they’re strong enough, the sweaters are removed and the penguins are washed using a mild detergent.
So, if you know how to knit and have other friends who know how to knit, or you’re taking a knitting class or are a member of a knitting club…or anything along those lines…why not have a knitting party!! What a great way to spend a Sunday brunch! Merino and mimosas 🙂
And just to help you along, here are a few patterns and instructions:
Once you have your sweaters collected, you can forward them to
1. Skeinz at the following address:
M PO Box 3123, Onekawa, Napier, New Zealand D 5 Husheer Place, Onekawa, Napier, P 06 843 3174 F 06 843 3090 M 021 899 396 E nzyc@designspun.co.nz or info@skeinz.com
Ling long Magazine Covers Issue 81, 1933 C.V.Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University
Remember about a year ago when I posted an overview of the exhibitThe Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao that was showing at the Hong Kong Museum of History. This is somewhat of a follow-up to that post. Yesterday, while perusing my twitter friend feed I came across this:
Having lived in Shanghai for a long time, I couldn’t resist clicking on the link and up came the website for the online repository of Ling long Magazine at the C.V.Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University. On this site you can find every issue of Ling long Women’s Magazine from 1931-1937. You may already know that Shanghai, and other cities in the ‘Orient’ were pretty happening places in the 1920s and 30s [check out the video below for proof].
This magazine was the woman’s guide to it all! It “was popular during a time of dramatic material, social, and political change in China.” Specifically the era after the end of dynastic rule and into the upheaval of the Republican Era. This collection provides a glimpse into the then newly ‘modern’ China through the magazine’s discourse on the ‘modern’ Shanghai woman in this period of change. The magazine addressed these changes with openness asking the reader to decide what is the definition of a ‘modern’ woman by providing them with contrasting points of view. As the website states:
Ling long Magazine Back Cover Issue 32, 1931 C.V.Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University
This is such a great resource for all sorts of fields from social science to design to advertising to linguistics. There are some English translations of articles on the website. But, it is a lot of fun to just peruse the magazines for the fashion trends and old ads. It’s interesting to notice some differences and similarities between the Eastern and Western models and movie stars. For example, I noticed that there’s a lot less smiling from the Chinese women than the Western women [at least in the magazines I looked at]. The website also provides a great list of resources for people interested in learning more about the Shanghainese woman in that era.
Today, we’re playing a game. Read the clues and try to figure out the location before you get to the end of this post.
In this country, children between the ages of 12 and 18 are legally allowed to work long hours in all sorts of hazardous conditions as long as the job is classified as agricultural work. If the farm is classified as a ‘small’ farm, children of any age can work as hired labourers.
Some of the most common jobs include:
picking fruits and vegetables
picking tobacco
hoeing cotton and weeding cotton fields
Some common job-related hazards include:
using sharp farm implements such as knives and chainsaws
operating heavy machinery such as tractors and grinders
pesticide exposure
sexual harassment and violence
exposure to extreme temperatures
repetitive motion injuries
unsanitary conditions
extremely long workhours sometimes without a day off during peak seasons
This country’s Department of Labour estimated that 3% of agricultural workers are children however, this is a flawed measure since it does not include children below the age of 14. Other estimates are as high as 9% of agricultural workers, however, this also does not include undocumented or subcontracted workers and workers working on their own family farms. Farms in this country rely on subcontractors to provide an estimated 15% or more of their workers. These labour contractors mediate the relationship between the growers and the workers. Therefore, the growers often have no contact with their subcontracted labourers. The growers pay a lump sum to the labour contractors who often manage all issues related to wages, transportation to job sites, and pay deductions.
Up to 40% of farm labourers are migrants that move with the seasons. Farm labourers are also ‘overwhelmingly poor’. These patterns of migration and poverty drive many adult labourers to ask their children to work alongside them. The impact on the child’s education can be significant. In some cases, because of the migration with the seasons, children may leave school in early spring and return in the late fall missing a few months each year. One third of child farm labourers drop out of school altogether.
Both adult and child farm workers are often not paid the minimum wage. In some cases, children are paid less than their adult counterparts, in other cases, a legal loophole provides exception for small farms and farms paying a piece-rate [which encourages unsafe work practices since safety equipment often hampers work speed]. Furthermore, overtime pay is not required for agricultural workers.
This country is not mentioned in the US DoL’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labordespite the fact that the legal loopholes for farm work create, reinforce and support conditions which are in clear violation of the ILO’s convention for the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor (no. 182 adopted in 1999). ‘Child’ in this convention is defined as all persons under the age of 18 and the worst forms of child labour includes “work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children (Article 3(d))”. This country was one of the first to ratify this convention and has been very active in promoting and instituting the convention worldwide.
Did I mention that this country is one of the top producers of cotton this year? Most of its cotton is exported to major clothing producers including China [the top destination], Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
A lot of the information in this post is summarized from this report. Thanks to Human Rights Watch for their continuous and unwavering commitment to this issue. This report contains a lot more information that I barely touched upon with enormous detail on the plight of these child farm workers. They also have first hand accounts of the working conditions the children must endure. This report is a must-read if you are interested in learning more about this issue.
Cynthia Castaldo-Walsh’s post on NotGoodEnough.com
This is an excellent overview of the legal loopholes in the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) which allow for these conditions. She also gives a brief description of changes proposed in the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment. This bill was introduced in 2009 and is still being churned through government machinery. You can track what’s happening with the bill here and here.
This post discusses the proposed revisions to federal law by the Department of Labor to better protect child farm workers. In particular, Elk points out how slow the process has been but he does also draw attention to the next resource in the list.
The Department of Labor’s proposed changes
The DoL’s proposed changes to federal law are up for public comment until November 1st and can be found here.
60 Minutes did a short (11 minute) segment about a family weeding cotton in the Texas plains. I strongly suggest it as a way to draw students into a debate on these issues:
[please keep watching beyond the ad in the first few minutes, I promise it’s worth it!]
Special thanks to Grist.org for bringing this issue to our attention. It really made us think about our preconceptions. Sometimes, just because something is “American [or Canadian] made” doesn’t necessarily mean it is responsibly made. Growers may be fulfilling their legal obligations, which is part of their responsibility, yet they are under enormous pressure to provide products at low prices giving them incentive to maintain and perpetuate this system of labour. At the same time, we, as consumers, are also part of the problem by constantly demanding low-priced commodities. But, these low prices do not reflect the real costs of production. These issues are very complicated. There is no easy answer. At the end of it all, someone, somewhere along the line still has to pay the real cost in one way or another.
It’s no secret that the CSR industry cycles through trends of the ‘it’ topic. For a while the hottest topic was workers at Latin American maquiladores, then it was human rights in the sports lifestyle industry, then we moved on to organic cotton, and water ‘stewardship’ and the cycles continue. Lately, I’ve noticed something interesting. A new hot topic is on the horizon and will probably emerge full force into ‘mainstream’ CSR conversations within the next few years: living wages!
Some of you may be thinking that you’ve heard of this issue before…nothing new! That’s true, it is not a new concept. Actually, the idea of a living wage [or fair wage, I’m going to use the two terms interchangeably until someone can tell me their exact definitions and how they differ] has been around for a long time. Katrine discussed the Asia Floor Wage Campaign on this very website in 2009. But, long before the Asia Floor Wage Campaign started it’s activities, fair trade products were being sold with the goal of providing a fair wage to producers. So what’s the big deal? Why am I talking about this as though it’s a hot new trend?
Well, there’s been another interesting set of events this year that at first may seem unrelated.
The release of the UN’s long-awaited Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework
The release of the OECD’s newly revised Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Recommendations for Responsible Business Conduct in a Global Context
The release of the FLA’s updated Workplace Code of Conduct
Reading all these statements and the background papers, the conference proceedings and so on that lead to the final product can be a bit tedious. Luckily, I have to do this for my dissertation anyway so, I’ll just summarize the relevant points and briefly explain the significance of these events.
The UN: Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework
When Professor John Ruggie was appointed the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on business and human rights back in 2005, he had a 2-year research based mandate “to ‘identify and clarify’ existing standards and practices.” In 2007, the UN Human Rights Council extended Ruggie’s mandate for 1 year with a request for recommendations based on his research. This mandate concluded with the publication of the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework in 2008 which was “welcomed” during the 8th session of the UN Human Rights Council. Once again, Ruggie’s mandate was extended for another 3 years during which the UN Human Rights Council requested that the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework be operationalized. The outcome of this long history is the publication of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Frameworkwhich were “recognized” by the 17th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
So what’s so important about these guidelines, and this history in general? They clarify the duties of businesses and states when it comes to human rights. What I think is especially important is the fact that the UN has basically placed corporate activity right in the middle of human rights discourse stipulating very clearly that not only does business have a responsibility to respect human rights, it also has a role in creating and supporting the mechanisms to remedy any rights violations associated with business activities. Essentially, the UN [which some have argued is the purveyor of global norms] has validated and legitimized the idea that business has a role in the governance of human rights. As a side note, one of the features of The Gap Inc., 2010 CSR report is the launch of their Human Rights policy [one of the first companies I know of with one of those] which directly references and uses similar terminology as the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework.
But I still haven’t shared the best part. If you read this document carefully, you will notice section 12:
You would think that I would be really excited about the ILO reference in this, but that’s not interesting at all since the commentary section clarifies that what they mean by the ILO’s declaration is actually just the 8 core rights which almost any business serious about CSR already acscribes to anyway. No, the interesting part is this simple mathematical equation:
International Bill of Human Rights
=
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
+
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
+
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
If you go deeper and look at the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights you will find a small statement, Article 7.a.ii, that is very relevant:
The OECD: Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Recommendations for Responsible Business Conduct in a Global Context
As you may have noticed, these declarations and reports and guidelines feed off each other. When Ruggie’s Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework was first released, the OECD took notice. In 2009, the idea was floated that maybe it was time to update their own guidelines for businesses which had not been reviewed since 2000! Kudos to them for noticing that a lot has changed since 2000. So it’s 2010, and after a whole lot of negotiations and discussions, the 48 member countries come up with a document called the Terms of Reference for an Update of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises which basically set out the parameters for changes to the guidelines. On page 4 of this document is this line:
The OECD then had conferences and meetings, some with John Ruggie, to discuss the future form of their guidelines. Finally, this year, the updated guidelines were launched in May. In those 84 pages, Chapter V, section 4.b stipulates:
If you look at the 2010 set of guidelines, there is no mention of adequate pay to “satisfy the basic needs of the workers and their families” so this was definitely an addition to this year’s guidelines. But, the commentary section doesn’t mention it at all! I don’t think this was an oversight. Maybe this was a way to test this proposition and gauge reactions. In any case, once again, a reference to some sort of an improvement in wages to meet basic needs is out there in an official document. The idea is becoming more embedded in the global normative outlook even if it still hasn’t been defined or had its parameters clarified.
The FLA: Workplace Code of Conduct
In June this year, after a 2 year process of consultations with their stakeholders, the FLA revised their Workplace Code of Conduct. And they made it really easy to spot the differences between the 1997 code and the revised 2011 code with a side-by-side comparison. This picture shows an interesting change [1997 on the left, 2011 on the right]:
Again, “basic needs” is used to describe the same thing the OECD was talking about; some sort of improvement in wages so that workers can afford their basic needs plus a little extra. To go a little further, the FLA stipulates that if the minimum wage does not cover basic needs plus a little extra, FLA members have to work with the FLA to reach such a level of compensation!! And so here it is, a direct call on businesses to work to improve wage conditions so that workers can afford their basic needs and have a little extra leftover!
Even though many organizations have been working on promoting the idea of a living wage including the Asia Floor Wage Campaign and the Ethical Trading Initiative, this is the first time that we are seeing these ideas seep into policy related documents at the global level. And this conversation about living wages isn’t contextually relegated to ‘developing’ countries. Check out this article from This Magazine about the living wage debate in Canada. Things start to get really complicated when there are discussions about the nitty-gritty details. Whose responsibility is it to implement these types of policies? What will the wider impact on the rest of society be? How will these policies be implemented within supply chains? and the questions just keep coming. The video below is from the ETI Conference in 2008 where these questions were actually discussed (start at 1:34). At the end of the day, this is just the beginning of the mainstreaming of the conversation but it is still a start!
The ever-excellent Ethical Fashion Forum has decided to run the fourth SOURCE Expo, a trade show for ethical sourcing, online. What’s even more interesting is that their seminars (webinars) are free to attend!! This promises to be a very interesting event for both designers and consumers interested in learning more about responsible fashion. What an amazing opportunity to hear information directly from those working in the field, but space is limited so sign up now!
The Social Alterations team is constantly coming across interesting content from a wide variety of sources. This is a curated selection of thought provoking reading we’ve done in the past month related to responsible fashion.
and xin nuzi 
(new woman); xiandai nuzi 
(contemporary woman); modeng nuxing 
(modern woman, modern girl, girl of this age, and girl of today).”
