Textile manufacturing in Bangladesh is particularly exposed. According to LO TCO employees in textile manufacturers have the lowest salaries in Bangladesh. The minimum wages were recently raised from 30 dollar per month to 60 dollar, but with the calculated living income to be 280 dollar. The conditions are miserable and the workers who lost their lives in the catastrophe in Rana Plaza was reportedly forced there by the employer – despite the fact that they knew about cracks in the building of concrete which tumbled.
But it’s not only in Bangladesh people work under slave-like conditions. A report from International Labour Organization states that 250 million children in the ages of 5 to 14 years old is forced to work in so-called developing countries. Scary numbers. And add the numerous amounts of women and men working in so-called sweatshops.
The worst of all is that it would take a comparatively small effort for all of us to make our world a little more human. Surveys find that us consumers gladly pay 15 percent more for a dress worth 120 dollar and 28 percent more for clothes worth 12 dollar if we know that everything is produced under fair conditions.
Another survey states that the “slave workers” salaries could double if the consumers pay 1,8 percent more for a garment.
The problem is that it’s extremely hard to know which clothes that have been produced under approved or good conditions. Expensive clothing brands ain’t “safer” than cheap ones. But it’s obvious that way too often it’s someone else that pay the price for our clothes.
And this is where Fashion Revolution is coming in. They want to draw attention to this question and raise our knowledge. They are convinced that people will reconsider before buying something if they are aware of how it is produced.
Share this important message with your friends in order to take a step towards a better world.