Category Archives: Human Rights

“Defy them”

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).

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09m798EcJxI]

Source: Amnesty UK

Oxfam Langara connects fashion design to social justice

 

This weekend, Oxfam Langara will challenge the role of fashion in the context of human rights and social justice.

 

When: Friday, April 3rd, 2009, 6:00pm (to end @2am, Sat. April 4th)

Where: Fashion Show, Langara College, 100 West 49th Street, Cafeteria/ After Party, Tonic night club, Vancouver

 

According to the Facebook page:

 

The Oxfam Campaigns that we will be concentrating on are:
• fair trade
• education
• debt and aid
• health and sanitation
• HIV/AIDS
• gender equality
• Arms Control


The show will feature selected appetizers, refreshments, prizes and raffles, entertaining music and key note speakers such as Miriam Palacios, head of Oxfam B.C/Yukon Region and Peter Prontzos, Political Science Professor from Langara College. Ticket holders will have the opportunity to network within the Oxfam community, Vancouver Fashion Week designers, media and photographers, fashion industry leaders, local community leaders, leading social justice advocate, and the head of Oxfam B.C/Yukon Region.

 

Tickets are 20$, with all proceeds going to Oxfam Canada.

 

For more information, and to purchase tickets, email oxfamfashion@gmail.com

Source: Stylefinds

Women Exploiting Women

 

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 a.m. to 9:40 p.m. including six hours of overtime, are uncommon.  The women are routinely at the factory up to 72 hours, forced to toil 20 to 25 hours of overtime.  Women unable to remain for overtime work, even if they have family emergencies, are fired.  The workers are allowed just 10.2 minutes to sew each Briggs New York blouse for which they are paid 19 ½ cents.  The women and their families are trapped in extreme poverty, earning just 76 cents to $1.15 an hour, which comes nowhere close to meeting even their most basic subsistence level needs.

Workers and their children are cheated of health and maternity care, including paid maternity leave, which they paid for and is supposed to be guaranteed under Guatemalan law.  Workers are also robbed of their vacation and severance pay and are shortchanged of their legal bonuses.

 

  • The Nicotex garment workers have no rights.  U.S. company audits are a sham, and the workers have never even heard of a “corporate code of conduct.”
  • At least some officials of the government-run Social Security Institute appear to be involved in a widespread corruption scam, along with factories such as Nicotex, to defraud the workers and their children of the healthcare they pay for.  This scam is an open secret in Guatemala, and it has devastating consequences for the workers.
  • The Nicotex sweatshop is just another example of how the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement has badly failed to enforce even Guatemala’s most minimal labor laws.   US-CAFTA has certainly not empowered workers through respect for their legal rights, nor has it helped raise them out of extreme poverty.”

                                                                                                                                    Source: NLC

For those of you who don’t know who Charles Kernaghan is, he is “The Man Who Made Kathy Lee Cry”. He also heads the National Labor Committee. He discusses what he calls ‘the science of exploitation’ and his work with the NLC from the film The Corporation. You can view the trailler for the documentary in the videos section of this site (on the left hand side).

slogan t-shirts: what do you think?

Katharine Hamnett, Slogan T-Shirt "No More Fashion Victims"

Katharine Hamnett, Slogan T-Shirt "No More Fashion Victims"

 

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 in conditions of abject poverty and near starvation.

Conventional cotton subsidies funded by American taxpayers are causing poverty in the developing world as they lower the world price for cotton. (Americans are the only ones that can change this by writing to their Congress people and telling them they insist on organic cotton clothing.)

20,000 people die every year from accidental pesticide poisoning in conventional cotton agriculture (World Health Organisation). Death by starvation is alarmingly prevalent and 200,000 cotton farmers commit suicide annually due to spiralling debts incurred from buying pesticides. A further 1,000,000 people a year suffer from long-term pesticide poisoning (Pesticide Action Network).

However, if farmers grow cotton organically and can sell it as such, this dire situation is reversed.

By growing organically, farmers get a 50% increase in their income – due to a 40% reduction in costs – and the 20% premium they receive for producing organic cotton allows them to feed, clothe, educate and provide healthcare for their children.

Organic cotton helps farmers trade their way out of poverty. It’s the only formula for survival in the cotton sector in the developing world.”

                                                            (Katharine Hamnett, Campaigns: Organic Cotton)

 

Another company that offers slogan t-shirts is American Apparel. I have been familiar with their ‘Legalize L.A.’ campaign shirt, but only recently came across their ‘Legalize Gay’ slogan t-shirt. The American Apparel slogan t-shirt wants you to promote and support the repeal of prop 8. 

It got me thinking. For me, these slogan shirts represent the convergence of fashion and politics in a clear and positive way; they offer the consumer a sense of empowerment, and send a clear message of support. But what do you think?

Two very different questions….

 

 

 

 

FIBERcast tweet along

 

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 ago

·  Environmental responsibility does not just have to do with fiber choice. remember the whole life cycle analysis/ #fibercast about 2 hours ago

·  CSR to Mr. Doug Cahn# fibercast is about looking at the impact, to mitigate the negative, and augment the possitive about 2 hours ago

·  Doug Cahn #fibercast http://thecahngroup.com/ about 2 hours ago

·  #csr is not an add-on, its a core issue, supplychain for an apparel company..pay your workers the legal limit, at least make up short fall about 2 hours ago

·  disctinction between compliant and non-compliant/the industry is aflling short. yes there is cost, but also have a business case (save$)#csr about 2 hours ago

·  #csr #fibercast Dr. Marsha Dickson Answers Q. on WRAP factory certification is important but not the answer http://tinyurl.com/bjckwu about 1 hour ago

·  limitations of factory monitoring asks “what?” not “why?” and quality of auditing can be lacking…provides only ‘snapshop’ #csr #fibercast about 1 hour ago

·  # fibercast #csr #recession: Cahn finds opportunity in downturn for better integration/restructuring interdepartmental thinking opportunity about 1 hour ago

·  #csr #fibercast Dickson: consumer difference perceptions from behaviour. no real ‘no sweat’ label, cannot ensure compliance about 1 hour ago

·  #csr #fibercast Dickson believes to look for honest companies working toward real change #nike #adidas (ex) about 1 hour ago

·  # fibercast #csr Cahn: government can play a voluntary role, also use trade agreement..ensure internationally approved standards on imports about 1 hour ago

·  # fibercast #csr Cahn check out fairlabor.org for opperations and http://www.sa-intl.org/ about 1 hour ago

·  # fibercast #csr Cahn, small/med. company: ask questions again and again, collaboration fairfactories.org about 1 hour ago

·  #csr #fibercast Dickson stresses importance of multi-stakeholder initiatives and also ngo’s light the fire under companies about 1 hour ago

·  #csr #fibercast Dickson to students: we need to educate students on #sr in graduate program, but also integrated into undergrad class about 1 hour ago

·  #csr #fibercast #sr Dickson http://tinyurl.com/b3ep9u about 1 hour ago

 

Sweated Labour, Dell, Transparency and this Blog

 

The issue of transparency is an important one. So, here’s a little blogging transparency … I write Social Alterations on my ‘Made in China’ Espresso Brown Dell Inspiron 1525.

 

The National Labour Committee released a report today titled “High Tech Misery in China: The Dehumanization of Young Workers Producing Our Computer Keyboards” Sure enough, Dell is one of the companies manufacturing products in the Meitai Plastics & Electronics factory highlighted in the report in Dongguan City, Guangdong China.

 

According to the report, the base salary at the factory is 64 cents/hour. Minus room and board, workers take home 41cents/hour. Tax all in, my ‘made to order’ laptop set me back $620.48.

 

Other companies producing in the factory include Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Microsoft and IBM.

 

You can view the NLC report here

AHRC: Call for more attention for handloom weavers suffering from hunger and Tuberculosis in Varanasi‏

 

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) released a ‘Hunger Alert’ update today regarding the state of poverty and TB amongst handloom weavers in Varanasi, India. According to the report, the weavers are suffering from lack of medical attention, government neglect and extreme poverty and hunger. You can read the entire alert, as well as view a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health and World Health Organisation calling for their intervention here. 

 

What does this have to do with sustainable fashion design?

To say that the textile sector in India is vast would be an understatement. A decline in India’s handloom weaving industry has left these weavers without work to provide for their family, and created a situation where they are too ill to change their circumstance. Human Rights violations against the handloom weavers in Varanasi cannot be ignored. Sustainable solutions must include all aspects of the industry.

 

On a related note, the Centre for Sustainable Fashion released information this week regarding the Shared Talent: India competition. This competition will showcase sustainable textiles in India. For more information on the competition, see here.

 

Source:  AHRC and CSF

 

 

FEI Conference

 

Clean Clothes Campaign via FEI

A home worker's work bench in Belgrade, Credit: Clean Clothes Campaign via FEI

Fashioning an Ethical Industry: Putting Ethics into Practice March 11th, 2009

 

This is a one day conference that will bring together experts in ethical fashion, as well as students and tutors, to discuss the current state of the ethical fashion industry, and ways to put ethics into practice. There is no question this will be an excellent conference.

 

You can read more about this year’s conference and speakers here.

To read a report on last year’s event click here, or to listen to a podcast, click here.

Source: FEI

Message from the Asian Human Rights Commission on the 60th Anniversary of UDHR

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 conversation of rights. He hopes the next 60 years will see the realization and achievement of Human Rights. On this 60th anniversary, I hope that consumers will consider the standard of the law within the countries their garments are produced, and support companies that promote international labour standards rather than those that hide behind frameworks of corrupt legal systems.

The AHRC has released their annual report on the state of human rights in 11 countries (Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand). You can download country reports here

The AHRC also works to document the countless human rights violations taking place in Asia. To receive notification of the AHRC Urgent Requests, just subscribe to their mailing list. Once you receive an urgent request, it only takes a few seconds to follow the link and send the letter of complaint they have already written for you to the appropriate individuals. You can subscribe here.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkWWWulqanQ]