My name is Jessmin Begum, I am 31 years old and I have been working in the garment industry for 15 years.

I have worked in six different factories in total. In those 15 years, I have seen many different labels. I have manufactured clothes for brands such as H&M, Gap, Walmart, S.Oliver, C&A, Zara. I first started working in the garment sector after completing my Higher Standard Certificate of education. A neighbour told me about a job in a garment factory; so I joined. In my first job I was a ‘helper’. That means I was cutting the threads from the seams of the clothing. I did that job for a month and then I was promoted to a seamstress. I worked in that factory for one year. Then I got a job at another factory where the salary was higher. I worked in that factory for the next nine years and earned 7700 Taka (85€/£62/$96) including overtime.

That factory was in an Export Processing Zone (EPZ). In the EPZ, a different labour law applies. The Government regulates it through an authority called BEBZA (Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority). My first job had been outside EPZ. You can tell the difference.  They pay wages in a timely manner on the seventh day of the following month, they give regular weekend breaks and holiday pay.

The government ruled that each factory in the EPZ should have a Workers’ Welfare Committee. When it came to the election for that committee, my friends encouraged me to run. They made posters and banners. The committee is comprised of 12 members. When it came to the election of the chair, the other eleven didn’t want to take on that role, so I did it. The committee is elected every two years and I was re-elected twice.

My duty as chair was to meet with BEBZA. Sometimes they came to the factory, which meant I had to leave my work and go to meet them at the General Manager’s office.

The factory owner put me under pressure.

In order to make a good impression, the factory owners told the Authority that they could speak to me at any time. However, I was pressurised not to go by the factory owner, the middle management, my line manager and supervisors. So I asked the people at the BEBZA why they called on me during working hours as my manager did not want me to leave my work.

Before I explain what happened, I would like to tell you a bit more about the factory

The factory had five floors and on each floor there were 400-500 people, around 2500 workers in the building, out of which there were just 12 committee members appointed. We were all working on different floors and in different jobs. During lunch break, we would sit together and discuss peoples’ complaints. We gathered information. When BEBZA came, sometimes we all went to see them, but often I went alone to pass on the complaints.

I was the one who was speaking out.

The others didn’t do that as much. BEBZA used to listen to me. They usually came two to three times a year as a routine check up, and when the workers were protesting.

So, as I said, the factory owner pressured me not to leave work in order to go to these meetings. When the time came for the meeting, they would give me more work. If I normally had to complete 10 garments, they now gave me 15, which would be impossible to finish. So sometimes I couldn’t attend the meetings. If there were no committee representatives who could attend the meetings with BEBZA, they asked the factory owner to send other employees, so he would send a supervisor or one of his relatives.

Whenever I had the opportunity to pass on the workers’ complaints, BEBZA said they would look into the problem. But there was no action. No solution. The law in Bangladesh stipulates working hours from 8am to 5pm, with two hours of overtime from 5pm to 7pm. But the owner pressurised us to work four or five hours of overtime. But you know, we can’t go home every day at 10pm. First of all, there is a security issue for women. Then, when we go home, we still have to cook. At that time I was living with my mother. I was single and my mother cooked for me. But other workers needed to do all that alone, they had to take care of their children and they also had to sleep.

The Authority did not respond to our complaints. There was no action.

So the workers gathered together and wrote the following demands: higher wages, no more than two hours of overtime per day, no insults while working, no beatings and, most importantly, no termination of our employment because of the strike. The last point was particularly important to us, because otherwise they could just fire us.

As the chair, I had a certain amount of power. There were 2500 workers supporting me. The first strike was on 9 February 2003. We told the management and the police that we would continue our strike and our attacks if they did not meet our demands. So they signed.

During my time as chair, we held four protests in total. After the first protest they couldn’t fire me anymore, so they looked for other ways to get rid of me. I was bribed with 200,000 Taka (2200€/£1650/$2570) by the factory owner. He teased me, gave me a bundle of money and said sarcastically:

“Girl, you don’t know how much money is in here. Just take it and go.”

They wanted me to leave the factory because I talked too much. They knew that I had influence. They knew the risk. They knew that if I went to the Authority, they would listen to me. I did not accept the money.

During the last strike, I was four months pregnant. One day I was injured by brick which I blocked from hitting my body with my hand. Workers were throwing bricks inside the factory and the police were throwing them threw back. I finally stopped working at the factory when I gave birth to my baby because I had to breastfeed. I couldn’t be fired when I was pregnant of course, but I resigned because of the baby.

Afterwards I worked in another factory outside of the EPZ for one and a half years where I wasn’t paid on time. I joined the National Garment Workers Federation in 2008 where I work part-time as the Secretary for Women’s Affairs. Now I am in the NGWF I am letting people know about the law and their rights.

I go out on the road a lot and visit workers in their homes. I also work in a factory as a production reporter where I earn 15.000 Taka. At least if I lose my job at the factory, I will still have the job at NGWF .

Unions are important because they encourage the factory owners to listen to us.

If the owner has a tight shipping deadline, he will talk to the union members and say “can you help me out, can you work two more hours” and they will accept. So the conversation begins.

Translated from the original interview in German by Anna Holl which appeared in N21

My name is Arifa Sultana Anny. I am 19 years old. I have worked in the garment industry for two years and six months. A month ago I lost my job because I opened my mouth too wide.

I worked six days a week at the factory. Every day from 8am until 5pm. On most days, I worked overtime from 5pm to 10pm as well. Then I would be in the factory for 14 hours. Sometimes I also had to work on a Friday, so I did not have a day off during the week.

I got up every day at 6am, got ready and did the daily errands. I had to cook and keep the house clean. At 7.40am I went to the factory.

In the factory, it was an ordeal. There were five floors and each floor only had two toilets which were not even clean. 400-500 people were working in the factory. There was no doctor, no canteen and no prayer room. We supplied clothes to brands such as ZeroXposur (American outdoor brand) and Li and Fung (a $20 billion global sourcing firm that supplies 40% of all apparel sold in the US). I was working on the production of jackets and my job was a Checker. After the jackets had been sewn, it was my task to check for errors. If I found a mistake, I went to the person who had worked on that stage of the garment so that they could correct the mistake. For this job I got paid less than the seamstresses.

I was constantly put under pressure

If I overlooked a mistake and the line managers discovered it, they would tell me that I’m not doing my job well. If the line managers found a mistake, they made me suffer. They docked hours from my attendance record for which I was not paid, even though I had worked.

One day I heard about the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) and through them I learned about labour unions. So I wanted to form a labour union in my factory. To do this, you need the support of 30% of the workers.

When I raised the subject for the first time and my colleagues heard that I wanted to start a union, they initially feared threats from their manager and were afraid of losing their jobs. I worked every day. I spoke to the other workers during their lunch hour, after work and in their homes. And sometimes the workers said “no” so I explained to them again why we needed to form a labour union and often that no became a yes.

When the factory owners heard that I had joined the NGWF and wanted to start my own union, they began to put me under psychological pressure. It started with them giving me too much work and then sometimes they docked my wage.

One day I received a message to see the Quality Manager in his office who threatened to throw me out.

He said: Do you know how we will do it? We will bring clothes and cut the seams and say this is the quality that you have produced.

They said that I had to give up on the idea of a union and, if not, they would carry on with the torture and pressure. They threatened that I could no longer live in my home. They threatened to go to my landlord and tell him to throw me out.

The owners and other senior staff were not quite sure if I would really form a union. Of course, I did not confirm their suspicions. But I did not agree to stop it. I had the support of 100 workers for the union. I needed only fifty more to reach the required 30%.

The factory where I worked was called Elite Garments and the owner has a second factory called Excel.

One day the Quality Manager took me into the “Chamber” the room of the foreman and other senior managers. He told me that he would relocate me to the other factory. However, I did not want to be relocated because I had already started establishing the union within my factory. All the work would have been in vain.

It came to a point where the Quality Manager said I should beg before his feet not to be transferred. Three or four people were in the same room and enjoyed the show. Before their eyes, I went on my knees and held the feet of the manager. They all took pictures. They laughed at me, criticised me, insulted me. The work in the factory went on. No one outside the room knew what had happened. I did that for three hours. Then they let me go with a warning not to start the union. However, up until this point they still did not know one hundred percent if I would really form a union.

After this incident I knew, of course, that I was not the only one who suffered in the factory. So I could not stop. I had 100 people who supported me. I had begged on my knees to the manager so that the union could become a reality.

Why should I give up after I had come this far?

Later I got the missing 50 signatures. I had a form on which I collected the signatures of the workers which I got from the NGWF. When I had the 150 signatures, I brought the form to the NGWF and from there it went for confirmation to the Labour Office of the Government. When the Quality Manager heard about it the hostility increased. There was even more pressure. They insulted me at work.  Then one day they took me by force to sign on a sheet of white paper. Then they threw me out of the factory. I was unemployed.

But the form to set up a labour union was already submitted. That is why people from the Labour Office came to the factory; they wanted to confirm the union. Of the 150 signatures, I had selected ten people for a committee. Five of the ten had already been fired and the rest were too scared to say anything. They did not speak. The government representatives asked the Quality Manager and the Production Manager what had happened to the five workers. They replied that the five had left of their own accord. And the government represenatives believed them.  They knew from the NGWF that the workers had been fired, but they decided to believe the managers, and so the union was rejected. It seems the people from the Labour Office support factory owners rather than labour unions. We do not know, maybe they were bribed.

Now there is no trade union at the Elite factory because I no longer work there. This all happened a month ago. For the last month, I have received no income.

I had begun to work in the textile industry because my father was ill. When I entered 10th grade, two years before graduation, he became very ill, so it was time for me to find a job. Obviously I did not get a good job. A neighbour told me about a textile factory in the area, so I applied there and I got the job. It was ok for me. I didn’t find a better job.

When I worked, I earned 6600 Taka (75 € or £55) excluding overtime and from 1500 to 2000 (about 22 € or £16) for the overtime. I live with my parents and my three siblings. We live together in one room in Kilga, Dhaka. We cook on the gas stoves of two security guards who guard the building across the street. We share the toilet with five other families.

My three sisters go to school. Before I could pay their school fees with my salary – that was 2000 taka per month (22 € or £16). This room cost us 3,000 taka (33 € or £25) a month. My mother works as a maid and earns 3,500 taka (40€ or £29). My father can not work because he is ill. Even when I was working, the salary was not enough because I had to spend all the money on food, rent and school fees. If someone got sick, we had to take out a loan. It was never enough.

My mother is the only person who earns money now. After I lost my job, we had taken out a loan of 15000 taka (170€ or £125). In six months, I have to pay back nearly 20000 Taka (€227 or £167).

The factory owners become richer and richer, but with my salary I was not going anywhere. If I could earn 15000 taka (170€ or £125) a month for working in a garment factory, then I could live in peace and would not always be under pressure to pay bills.

I do not want to work in a factory. I’m trying to find another job but otherwise I will have to start working in a factory again. And I will still not be quiet. I must protest again. I am that kind of person. When I learned about the NGWF, I was the one who asked them questions. There are two kinds of people: those who see and accept corruption and the others who do not like it and fight it. I belong to the latter group.

I am proud to make clothes that people can wear anywhere in the world and in the West. It makes me proud that developed countries buy our clothes. I am so proud that you wear them.

At the same time, I also wonder why the Western countries do not pay us a decent wage for our work? Why don’t they support us? I want the middlemen to pay more to the factory for our clothes so the factory owners can pay more to the workers.

In Bangladesh, the textile industry is very important and with this industry we can improve the situation in our country. For this to happen, we need the help of the foreign people who buy our clothes. In return, I promise to make your clothes to the highest possible standard.

This is my promise.

You can follow Anna Holl’s travels to discover #whomademyclothes on our blog and on Twitter @hollanna  Anna is reporting in Bangladesh for N21 who have a focus on textiles for the next 4 weeks.  http://n21.press/schlagwort/textil/ 

http://n21.press/

We don’t know the true cost of the things we buy.  The fashion industry supply chain is fractured and producers have become faceless. This is costing lives. Not just the mass loss of life we hear about when another disaster hits a garment factory, but the  lives of individual artisans and garment workers who cannot support themselves in their own community and undertake perilous journeys in search of a better life.

Hundreds of thousands of migrant garment workers are employed throughout the fashion and textiles suppy chain, many of whom live in constant fear as they are working illegally.   “They took us to the airport and left us there for three days. We couldn’t travel, because we didn’t have tickets. Armed gunmen, who we were told were from the armed forces, threatened us. We feared we would be shot if we continued to protest. We were then rounded up in a camp” reported a garment factory worker in Mauritius to the Clean Clothes Campaign.

Legal migration can be a spur for development, but in many cases, particularly when people move illegally, migrants face harassment and violence and often increased poverty. The fashion industry has the potential to generate sustainable livelihoods for artisans and garment workers around the world wherever they live, but this can only be done through fully traceable and transparent supply chains, backed up with regular monitoring.

The current lack of transparency in fashion supply chains makes it virtually impossible for consumers to know who made their clothes and accessories.  Without knowing #whomademyclothes, how can we know in what conditions they were made?

At Pachacuti, we believe fashion needs to rediscover a traceable narrative. We have worked for three years as a pilot on the EU Geo Fair Trade project which has brought an unprecedented level of traceability to our supply chain.  The project aims to provide visible accountability of sustainable provenance, both for raw materials as well as production processes.

This level of traceability data is far from easy to collect – it cannot be achieved by a few clicks on the computer – but it is essential to guarantee that our supply chain is as transparent as we can possibly make it.  Despite the remoteness and inaccessibility of the region of Azuay where our Panama hats are woven, we traced the production of our hats back to the GPS co-ordinates of 154 of our weavers’ houses – not easy data to collect when only 45% of homes were accessible by road, located high in the Andes.

But it doesn’t stop there. Not content with tracing our Panama hats back to where they were woven, we then traced the straw back to the communities on the coast of Ecuador in Guayas province where it is processed. Next, a bumpy hour by truck from the nearest paved road, we mapped the GPS coordinates of each plot of land in the coastal cloud forest where the straw is harvested on community-owned plantations. The community has been working hard to protect their area of land and to increase sustainability and biodiversity in the area. They are now seeing a lot more toucans, armadillos and monkeys in the plantation.

Once established, the carludovica palmata plant can be cropped monthly for 100 years – surely one of the most sustainable sources of raw material imaginable. The plants also help to a prevent erosion and improve air quality. Our straw is gathered by 32 harvesters who form the Love and Peace Association – maybe a rather incongruous name for men who spend most of their lives wielding a machete! The straw harvesters are keen to point out:“We are producting oxygen for the world”

Our research for the Geo Fair Trade project took three years, including a 6 month period in Ecuador and four other field trips in order to collect social, economic and environmental indicators and track our Panama hats to their source.  Our weavers are delighted that this research data helps correct a historical misnomer and Pachacuti’s panama hats can now be tracked back to their country of origin – Ecuador!

But geographic traceability is just one element of creating a transparent supply chain. Transparency also implies openness, honesty, communication and accountability.  Regular, ongoing monitoring of the supply chain to measure both the social and environmental impact is essential if we are to claim that our products are truly sustainable.

In 2012 UNESCO declared that the art of weaving a Panama hat in Ecuador would be added to their list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Intangible Cultural Heritage is a term used for knowledge, traditions and rituals which permeate the everyday life of a community, passed down through generations and forming an intrinsic part of their identity and culture.

However, the historic exploitation of weavers by middlemen means that this timeless skill is under threat as young people are searching for alternatives.  This has led to the small, rural community where we work in Ecuador having one of the highest levels of migration in the country, with 60% of children having at least one parent living overseas. The destruction of family and community life has led to high rates of alcoholism, double the national rate of youth suicides and teen pregnancies are the norm.

We have heard so many desperately sad stories of people, including the children of our weavers, who are paying coyotes, human traffickers, to take them on the dangerous journey through Central America and Mexico, across the border to the United States.  One of our weavers has a 15 year old daughter who walked most of the way from Ecuador to Mexico before paying a coyote to cross the remote, desert border.  In the village where we work, almost the entire younger generation has migrated and women outnumber men by 7 to 1.  In interviews conducted with our weavers, most of them had children living overseas and several  of them did not even know in which country their children lived. Many emigrants will work for years to pay back the traffickers, often returning penniless to their own country.

Unlike the journey taken by most Panama Hats in the world, which pass through the hands of around seven different intermediaries (known as ‘perros’ or dogs due to their unscrupulous purchasing practices) Pachacuti works directly with our artisans in every step of the process, weaving, dyeing, blocking, finishing, to ensure that as much of the final value as possible remains in their hands.

Our work on the EU Geo Fair Trade project involved the collection of 68 social, economic and environmental indicators which enabled us to measure our Fair Trade impact, tracking progress over a three year period. We also piloted the WFTO Sustainable Fair Trade Management System and Fair Trade Guarantee System.  Prices are monitored through interviews with a sample group of weavers to ascertain a local living wage. The price is also measured against the government’s cañasta básica vital, the monthly market price of meeting basic needs for a family of 4 and we ensure that the prices we pay are rising at a higher rate of inflation. We provide ongoing training and investment, not just in design development and skills, but in self-esteem, human relations, building a nursery, costing of products and overheads and health and safety.

Since 1992, we have worked to preserve and encourage traditional hat weaving skills in Ecuador but, despite our efforts, hat weaving is still in steep decline in the wider community and the average age of our weavers is 58.  As well as working to ensure this way of life is viable for future generations, last year we provided a substantial interest-free loan to help establish a new organisation to work specifically with younger weavers.

The art of creating Panama Hats is woven into the fabric of daily life in rural Ecuador: women weave on the bus, walking to market, on their way to the fields. For the  women who weave Pachacuti Panama hats, weaving is more than an art, more than a skill, it is a way of life and represents the cultural heritage of an entire community.   Will the art of panama hat weaving die out as young people abandon traditional, rural ways of life and migrate to the city, or emigrate in pursuit of the American dream? Or can Panama hat weaving provide a sustainable form of income to enable women to remain within their rural communities, keeping families together, and passing on their culture and traditions.   Pachacuti is working to prove that the a better Panama hat industry is possible.

Fashion Revolution aims to raise awareness of the effect of our purchasing decisions on the livelihoods of garment and accessories producers and their communities.  We believe that transparency is the first step in transforming the industry and is a way to bring wider recognition to the many skilled artisans within the fashion supply chain.  This, in turn, will help ensure their work is properly valued and justly remunerated in the future.

If you want to help build more open and connected fashion supply chains, take a selfie and contact the brand on social media to ask #whomademyclothes?

A thesis may seem like an unusual springboard for starting a business, but this was the case for Stella Airoldi. Stella, who is Dutch, traveled to Uganda in 2009 to research the state of girl child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s notorious Lord Resistance Army (LRA). There she met Pastor David Wafula, who introduced her to women from the Acholi Quarter of Kampala, a camp for displaced persons. Many of the women had fled the Kony regime, which was guilty of torture, murder, and the enslavement of children—as both members of his army and sex slaves.

Stella marvelled at the jewellery these survivors made out of recycled paper, and she was struck by their artistry and ingenuity. She returned home to the Netherlands to finish her studies, but the memory of the women stayed with her. Recognising their immense talent and resilience, Stella wanted to create an opportunity to work with them. In 2012, she reunited with Pastor Wafula in Uganda and partnered with the women of the Acholi Quarter to start 22STARS, an organisation dedicated to bringing their goods to market.

For Stella, the name 22STARS combined the personal and universal. She had always loved the number 22.

“It is a number of power and accomplishment. And when you turn the numbers towards each other, you get a heart…it was the perfect number to show our heart for the world.” Stella continues, “The stars symbolize how everything is interconnected in this word. Whether we live in Europe or in Africa, we can all see the stars. One of our artisans, Grace, says our name means that she doesn’t have to worry in the darkness for that is when the stars shine brightest.”

The majority of the Acholi Quarter’s 10,000 inhabitants come from Acholiand, and they are subjected to myriad forms of discrimination. The Acholi people have long been targets of the LRA, and gender bias adds its own barriers for women. Several 22STARS artisans have no education, are disabled, and/or suffer from HIV/AIDS, making finding a job extremely difficult.

“Every day, our designers form an incredible source of creativity, energy, and positive power,” says Stella, “while producing wonderful pieces of jewelry for 22STARS.” Making the jewellery is not an easy process. The women, Stella explains, need to “make every single bead, cut them, roll them, varnish them—in total there are 26 steps to be taken before the jewellery is ready.”

In an area in which 1 in 4,000 people has electricity and even fewer have running water, ingenuity is key—the artisans use recycled paper simply because it is available.

“The motivation was not to be eco-friendly,” Stella says, “however, it shows us that we can do more with recycling than we think … we should take [their industriousness] as an example.”

22STARS provides the artisans with a market for their work, and this income provides the designers and their families with housing, food, and medicine. It also gives the women the dignity of work and a feeling of purpose.

“They are proud of what they make,” Stella says. In addition, the net profits from 22STARS help to fund “educating our designers and their children—they receive English lessons, learn about Income Generating Activities (IGA), get social support, health education, and music, dance, and drama classes.” Stella believes studying the arts is invaluable. “Music, dance, and drama are important because it is in the now … it is a fun time for all of the women and their children, and it is also a time of sharing and healing.”

Susan, who is a 22STARS’ Team Leader in Uganda, is the embodiment of what it means to heal—and prosper.

“Susan’s first husband, a soldier, died in 1999,” Stella says. “Her second husband went to Somalia in 2007 with the peacekeeping force and never returned. During that period, Susan became so sick and stressed that her sister took her to the hospital in Kampala. There, she was diagnosed with HIV, cancer, and tuberculosis. Because of the stigma surrounding HIV, Stella says, “she had to be creative in making a living for herself and her three children … She searched for something she could do from her home.”

Susan learned to make jewellery with paper beads and honed her skills. Today, she helps with motivating other women who are less fortunate, and has many friends.

“When I saw Susan last year,” Stella says, “she told me that she started going back to school. This year she will graduate, and she will soon start university! How amazing is that?”

22Stars, along with TO THE MARKET, hopes to create more stories like Susan’s through their continuing partnership.

Reposted with kind permission of To The Market. Support and shop 22STARS here.

The ethos of No. 41 is simple: empowering one person can make an incredible impact.

Since 2012, No. 41 has been inspiring and enabling women in Gisenyi, Rwanda to better their lives and community. It began with a group of women from the Noel Orphanage and a lesson on how to sew bags.  Each bag means “no hunger for one:” the purchase of one bag funds one child’s school meals for an entire year.  So far, profits from the bags have helped provide 1,200 children and 36 teachers with hot, healthy lunches.

No. 41 also provides 30 women artisans with a sustainable income which then allows 8 mothers to feed their 12 children, and provides jobs for 4 previously unemployed men to prepare school meals. In addition, 19 of 20 women from the orphanage are now attending a university.  Through their work at No. 41, these women continue to make a difference in their own and in other people’s lives.

We had the chance to interview one of No. 41’s survivor artisans, Jeanette, about her life, her experience working for No.41, and her dreams for the future.

What is your favorite thing to make? 

My favorite thing to make is bags. I enjoy learning the different styles and techniques. I like bright colors, particularly pink. I like them because when I wear them and they become dirty, I know it immediately, and I can clean them.

What inspires you in your work and/or your life?

Learning inspires me. I like making new things and making them well. I feel good when I hear from others that we (No.41) are making the new and good things.

How has economic independence impacted your life?

I feel comfortable and capable to be able to take care of my money and myself.

What are your dreams?

Oh, (laughs) I have many dreams! I am always dreaming! In 2012, No.41 asked me about my dreams, and I said I wanted to be a driver; today, I have now achieved that by completing driving school. I want to be a good mother and to look after my children very well. I want to help others. I need to own a car, and I would like to build a house.

What is a story you like to tell about your life?

I would like for people to know about my brother and his love for me. Even though I wasn’t able to succeed in secondary school, my brother loved me so much and never left me alone. During that time, I learned about God’s plan for me and it built me and gave me strength to continue with my life. I will succeed in my dreams and make my brother proud.

No.41 employs 20 women and men earning a sustainable income.  They donate 100% of the profits from the sale of their items to fund a feeding program at a local school. Eating a hot, healthy lunch, daily, ensures that the nearly 1,200 students are able to get a solid education and move confidently into whatever the future holds for them. Learn more about No. 41 here.

This story is reposted with the permission of  To The Market. To The Market | Survivor-made Goods combines the powers of commerce and storytelling to empower the world’s most courageous survivor populations in the belief that resilience is more powerful than suffering. Read more about their work and buy survivor-made goods here

Currently, markets are dominated by a Fast Fashion model that creates waste and often mistreats human beings in the drive for cheap, disposable clothing. Tripty began with inspiration to take the heritage and skill of Bangladesh and change that model.

We wanted to create a fashion brand that benefits communities, culture and environment and rethinks the way international products are created in developing countries. By combining traditional weaving, stitching and dyeing techniques with innovative and sustainable materials such as pineapple fiber it is possible to create products that are both relevant and timeless. An ethical supply chain is within reach.

The Tripty Project is a Slow Fashion brand based in Bangladesh and Oakland, CA. You can support The Tripty Project’s Kickstarter Campaign here

Find out more about The Tripty Project through their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

After Tesco’s comprehensive answer to N4Mummy‘s question about who makes their school uniforms #whomademyclothes – Tesco Talks we asked whether Aldi would respond with  information about who makes their £4 school uniforms, apparently the cheapest available in the UK.

Zoe Hitchen just got in touch to say that she had tweeted Aldi to ask #whomademyclothes and has just received a response.

What would we like Aldi to do?

On our Brands page, there is a download pack detailing all of the ways in which brands and retailers can be more transparent. These include

To find out more about transparency in the fashion supply chain and why it is so important, please read the Transparency page on our website.

If you are shopping for school uniform over the coming weeks you can also check the Ethical Consumer’s school uniform ranking guide

Tesco may not be the first brand that comes to mind when you consider ethical trading. However their F&F clothing range aims to deliver “great products at great prices from factories that (they) are proud of”, and they claim that they ‘want to be a force for change in both reducing our social and environmental impact’.  But when a your child’s school polo shirt costs just £2.50 for 2, you do wonder what corners are cut to achieve the incredibly low price.

Since the tragedy of the Rana Plaza, working conditions in Bangladesh’s clothing factories have been put under scrutiny. We, the consumers, have been forced to consider #whomademyclothes? Tesco’s shiny corporate website naturally says all the things that we want to hear. So, in an attempt to dig deeper and find out what Tesco is actually doing, I spoke to Dani Baker, Corporate Responsibility Manager of F&F here in the UK, and Mashuda Begum, Senior Manager of Responsible Sourcing, working on the ground in Bangladesh.

Q: What practical steps is Tesco taking to improve working conditions in Bangladesh? Dani: We are committed to ensure that anyone who supplies any products to F&F has the best possible condition for their workers.  We understand that this cannot be done from afar, but by working in direct partnership with all our suppliers, which is why we have people around the world working on the ground. In Bangladesh we have a team of about 60 people who not only check things like the fire and safety standards of factories, but also make sure that corners are not cut. So that the factories are a good place to be with staff being paid a decent wage, on time and wider social economic issues are being addressed – like ensuring that their children can go to school.

We have also been proud to support a number of initiatives, including programmes like the Benefits for Business and Working (BBW) training, run by Impactt, since 2010. Through this scheme, we have seen real improvements in factories as they have looked at ways to not only to improve the efficiency of the production line and the quality of the work, but also at human resources, communication and worker welfare. The results have been amazing in providing workers with reduced hours, better pay and benefits.  Another project, Phulki, is a women’s empowerment scheme which provides crèches for female workers so they have somewhere safe to leave their children whilst they work- helping to protect them from the possible dangers of drowning, sexual abuse or even trafficking.

All of the factories we use have regular independent audits. We don’t just take the audit results at face value, our team on the ground ensure a more long-term collaborative approach; this includes a number of interventions such as running interactive workshops with our factories, so we can work with them on problems that arise, and support them running their factory safely and legally.

Q: That’s great that Tesco is regularly in the factories. But, how do you know that what they show you truly reflects everyday practice? Dani: This is why it is important to us that we build up long-term collaborative partnerships with our suppliers, so we can have a real insight into their everyday practices. The majority of the factories we use, we have worked with for over five years. However, the product is also a good indicator as to whether everything is OK in the factories. We regularly check the quality and if there are any persistent issues, this tends to flag up that there may be a problem.

Q: Your website states that your team in Bangladesh are there to ‘build relationships and to ensure decent working standards.’ But what does that mean in practice? Mashuda: It means providing a safe and hygienic working environment where adequate steps have been taken to prevent fire related, machine and safety accidents. Workers receive regular and recorded health and safety training, and this training will be repeated for new or reassigned workers. We also mandate that workers should have access to clean toilet facilities and to potable water, and, if appropriate, sanitary facilities for food storage shall be provided. Accommodation, where provided, should be clean, safe, and meet the basic needs of the workers.

Q: What are some of the challenges of implementing this in Bangladesh? Dani:Hartals occur relatively regularly and sometimes are violent; roads are often blocked off which can mean that certain parts of the capital can get cut off. This is difficult not just for F&F and our employees in Dhaka, but also for the factories. Products and materials that need to be received by the factories in order for their workforce to make an order can be delayed. The workforce whose role it is to make the product could be sitting and waiting for deliveries to arrive for days and this can ultimately lead to longer working days, when they finally arrive. Factory training programmes, meetings and visits – no matter how important – must be put on hold and rescheduled.

We have also be working to help some factory owners understand that cutting corners doesn’t make sense in the long run. The short term gain of not providing workers with basic safety equipment is likely to have a long-term detrimental effect on their business and workers and just doesn’t make sense. It has also been a challenge for them to see us and the BBW as part of the process and fellow collaborators and not just seen as external people in their factory. In some cases it has been a more effective process to empower the workforce to initiate change with some factory owners.

Q: As documented in The True Cost movie, there is clearly an issue in Bangladesh of workers not having the right to collective bargaining with factory owners. How does Tesco use their influence on factory owners to persuade them it is worth their while improving conditions for the workers? Mashuda: Tesco requires that all factories that we use in Bangladesh must have a Workers Participatory Committee formed through an election process, to ensure the workers’ rights and benefits. During our regular audits we monitor whether this has been in place and it is viewed as a violation of law if the factory doesn’t comply, which we follow up until this criteria has been met.

Q: What social enterprise work are you doing in Bangladesh? Dani: Studies have shown that children, in the developing world, who go to school in uniform perform better in tests and have lower rates of absenteeism. This year we are donating 20,000 school uniforms in Bangladesh as part of our Buy One, Give One scheme. When a customer buys an item from the Buy One, Give One range we will donate an entire uniform. So as our polo shirts are made in Bangladesh for every pack bought we donate a uniform to a child there.

Please click here for more information.

Tesco Clothing Corporate Responsibility

The True Cost Movie – www.truecostmovie.com

#whomademyclothes? – www.fashionrevolution.org 

Project BBW – www.impacttlimited.com

All photos used with permission of Tesco.

Blog kindly reproduced with permission from  N4Mummy

On Monday 29 June 2015 in the UK House of Lords, industry leaders, press and political leaders attended the roundtable debate Ethical Fashion 2020: a New Vision for Transparency. The aim of the event was to help to shape a vison of what transparent supply chains could look like in five years time and set out what steps are needed to transform the fashion industry of the future.

The event at the House of Lords, now in its second year, was co-hosted by Fashion Revolution, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion.

Introducing the event, IOSH Chief Executive Jan Chmiel said

“Transparency matters because it can drive improved workplace standards. It can also increase recognition of good health and safety performance. And importantly, it can help ensure more people view health and safety as an investment, not a cost – one that saves lives, supports business and sustains communities. Whereas, a lack of transparency can do the reverse. Crucially, it can mean that firms don’t know the factories that are supplying them, so they can’t actively manage their risks – potentially leading to tragedy, disaster and business failure”.

Co-founder of Fashion Revolution, Carry Somers, set the scene as to why transparency is a crucial issue to address over the next 5 years

“So much is hidden within the industry, largely because of its scale and complexity. The system in which the fashion and textiles industry operates has become unmanageable and almost nobody has a clear picture how it all really works, from fibre through to final product, use and disposal.

The low or non-existent levels of visibility across the supply chain highlight the problematic and complex nature of the fashion industry. A few brands have received a lot of public pressure to publish information about their suppliers and some have responded by disclosing parts of it. Yet, the rest of the industry remains very opaque. It’s not just brands; it’s the myriad other stakeholders along the chain too.  We believe that knowing who made our clothes is the first step in transforming the fashion industry”.

The two hour debate, chaired by Lucy Siegle, acknowledged where progress needed to be made, highlighted opportunities for change and set out a vision for how the fashion industry could and should look by 2020.

Some of the key points made by the speakers are set out below:

Peter McAllister, Executive Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative

• We need to break down what transparency looks like and define what the journey looks like, so we get a virtuous circle.
• Smart regulation drives behaviour. Once the environment is predictable, business can work within that environment. What is difficult is when business can’t predict when wages will rise or fall, when there will be a strike, etc.
• We need mechanisms where workers are represented not where they are just at the receiving end of good intentions
• We want to see the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights become a rallying call to transform fashion industry and see this fully implemented by 2020. Companies need to undertake human rights due diligence, understand the impacts and take the remedial action required. This underpins the need for transparency.
• We can’t wait for a crisis – we need to put national and private mechanisms in place. We need to set up platforms in key places such as China and India to influence change in producer countries.
• Bangladesh is still a young country with weak infrastructure. The Accord and the Alliance were the right response at the right time. It is an attempt to turbocharge the effort of the Bangladesh government to set up their own mechanisms. It is designed to be a contribution to a longer term shift, of which we are yet to see the green shoots.
• Transparency is coming at companies, whether they like it or not – better to get ahead of the curve. The best way to get change is to inspire competition between companies.
• This sector is well overdue transformative change, not just twiddling at the edges

Rob Wayss – Executive Director of The Bangladesh Accord

• Accord signatories were placing “unprecedented” requirements on their suppliers.
• Even though there had been a positive response to the Accord, much more needs to be done including the increasing the pace of remediation works in factories and ensuring workers are able to raise safety concerns without fear of reprisal. If other workers see that raising safety concerns leads to hassle, they won’t express worries themselves.
• The Accord is based on a 5 year agreement. Health and Safety Committees have been put in place in all factories, remedial action is being taken, factories are working with union representatives.
• Transparency is the key to progress and the way the Accord works. We publish inspection and disclose non-compliance.
• Inspections for the Accord were carried out by world class engineers who worked alongside Bangladeshi engineers. I would like to see the assessments based on scientific engineering principles.
• Money, resources and political will are needed to change the way we do business.
• A kite mark on garments to verify ethical production would be very difficult as would need to verify what is the standard, who is assessing and monitoring. It is very high risk and it is not very meaningful, even though there is an appetite for this amongst consumers.
• The media has an important role to play as it creates pressure. Where there are legitimate article expressing valid criticisms, we respond accordingly. However, some articles in the Bangladeshi press were perhaps generated by factory owners who wanted to see the pace of the Accord slowed down.

Baroness Young of Hornsey – All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion.

• You can only make a choice if you have information and that information turns to knowledge
• More businesses need to be more honest.
• We need to think more creatively and outside of the box of usual business models.
• Legislation won’t solve the whole problem but it can promote cultural change, as we’ve seen with the Equality Act.
• The government had to be encouraged to put the transparency clause in the Modern Slavery Bill in place by business. Loopholes in law which still exist around Modern Slavery Act will be stricter by 2020.
• The fashion industry is different to other industries as it has such a widely distributed supply chain. I’d like to see pressure building so companies can make progress on their public statements over the next five years as to how they are addressing modern slavery within their supply chains.
• We need more empowerment of consumers, business and politicians so this becomes so much part of life that we don’t need to think about it.
• The idea of a kite mark on the surface seems attractive but it simplifies what is an incredibly comples area. How do you make calculations which balance the social and the environmental?
• We can’t assume Made in Britain is OK. One member of the APPG saw conditions in a garment factory in East London last week as bad as those you would see anywhere in the world.

Simon Ward – British Fashion Council (BFC)

• The BFC has a three-year strategy to put sustainability at the heart of all we do. BFC is undertaking a collaboration with Marks and Spencer through the Positive Fashion initiative to promote best practice in order to stimulate real and meaningful change, highlighting the practical toolkit for designers which incorporates sustainability.
• There is a a need to find creative solutions and look at things differently. For instance, the BFC worked with the government to set up a draft standard on fashion apprenticeships as a solution to the problem of unpaid interns.
• We’re on an endless hamster wheel, more & more, cheaper & cheaper. How can we break the madness & tell a positive, creative story? People warm to the story and telling the story behind an item of clothin is an entrancing way to give insight into the people behind the clothes. It provides a compelling motivation for change.

Garrett Brown of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network

• We need public listing of supply chains
• We need public disclosure of monitoring timelines and remedial action
• We need meaningful participation by workers, including training to give them the information and authority to act without retaliation.
• Sourcing is currently driven by the lowest price, highest quality, fastest delivery, with a window dressing of CSR.
• It is a pre-requisite that governments have the will and the resources to enforce the regulations, but in most places in the developing world this isn’t the case. In Bangladesh, it should be the government enforcing regulation and the Accord is a real step towards achieving this.   Mexico has strong health and safety legislation, as strong as the US, but it has high foreigh debt, so won’t do anything to deter investents. This is why workers need to protect themselves.
• Transparency is only as good as the information that you get

Finally, Lucy Siegle asked the panellists what one thing would make a massive difference by 2020?

Garrett Brown: The Accord model of public discoloure is critical. Brands have to disclose where their factories are and tell us about the conditions.

Simon Ward: A lot of big and complex change is required. We need a magic story to tie it all together so it is understandable.

Baroness Lola Young: Information leading to activism. Supporting organisations like Fashion Revolution which are build on the work of other organisation like the EFF, ETI, Labour Behind the Label. Information needs to be acted on and we need coalitions like Fashion Revolution which can lobby for change.

Rob Wyass: Audits, credibly performed

Peter McAllister: The ETI has made a commitment to develop a public form of the audits of their companies which we hope will showcase some of the best performers.

After the debate, guests adjourned to River Room, overlooking the Thames, for a drinks reception and networking. Baroness Lola Young and Lord Speaker, Frances de Souza, both gave speeches at the reception and many of the guests were filmed for an upcoming series of mini films being produced and directed by Fashion Revolution as part of the European Year for Development.

The event at the House of Lords brought together many of the key people from within the fashion industry and beyond who are at the forefront of creating meaningful change. The challenge now is to translate the vision set out for transparency in 2020 into a reality in order to transform the fashion industry of the future.

Photo credits: Arthur & Henry, Zoe Hitchen, Orsola de Castro and IOSH

It’s not a crime to wear the same outfit time after time. It’s the only way to take a stand against the culture of throwaway fashion that is becoming so prevalent.

It may sound preachy but, as consumers, I believe it is our responsibility to know where our clothes are made. The millions who slave away in places like China, Bangladesh and India, churning out goods for big fashion corporations, are often so badly underpaid that they are unable to afford basic living expenses.

It is not just unethical working conditions that are the problem with the modern fast fashion trend. Even if you are indifferent to what goes on thousands of miles away from you, it is also you, the consumer, who suffers as a result. Only in 2012, Greenpeace released their report “Toxic Threads: The Big Fashion Stitch-Up”, which revealed many facilities making cheap clothing for the major high street fashion payers were using hazardous chemicals.

And then there’s the impact on the environment. Continuing to manufacture clothes that are worn only a few times is a huge waste of natural resources. As consumers, if we choose to throw away our clothes after one season that has a big impact on our carbon and water footprints.

When I founded Tom Cridland, my menswear brand, we focused for our first year only on making trousers. When deciding on a second garment to add to my collection, I knew I wanted to create something that was more than simply an item of clothing, but that would lead an industry trend towards protecting our natural resources by making truly durable clothing.

The 30 Year Sweatshirt is a cry for sustainability in the fashion industry. I’ve been so touched by the reaction from the international media to the campaign and I have faith that, together, we can tackle this important issue.

Bio:

Tom Cridland, 24, is the founder of his eponymous menswear brand, famous for their signature trousers. He has just launched the 30 Year Sweatshirt as a Kickstarter project.

Links:

http://www.tomcridland.co.uk/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomcridland/the-30-year-sweatshirt