Many things come to one’s mind when reading the headline of this essay, one aspect being the clothes we wear, be it fashion or just a pair of jeans. Behind all the fashion brands a story of cruelty is often hiding. The truth is, that when you go shopping, you will only see half of what you are actually paying for, the rest of the ‘product’ can be found in Asia’s many sweatshops where women and children are working up to 19 hours a day to sew your clothing for merely a few dollars a day.
Globalization in your drawers
When talking about globalization, often, the focus is on the impact it has on consumers. While this may be oh-so interesting, let us not forget the impact consumers have on the globalization. Making products from all over the world available to everyone, gives the consumers that much more power. Garments are often produced in sweatshops in Asia, be it China, India or other countries where the poor are way below poverty limits. Labor here is cheap and as mentioned, it is not uncommon to be working 19 hours a day. You don’t think of that when you drag on your new pair of ONLY jeans, because no one told you. The companies do their best to hide the fact that by buying their products one sponsors the use of sweatshops, and thereby torture-like production methods in East Asia. Before you go burn all your clothes and decide to grow your own hemp so you can sew 100% ecological and socially responsible clothes, consider the alternative. If the sweatshops had to close because western people stopped buying their products, where would these people go to make money? That’s right, they would have nowhere to go and would eventually starve to death.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Is a term used by the companies and media to highlight all the good things that companies does do. It consists of many things, widely explained as something beyond making money, thereby satisfying shareholders, employees and so forth. Human rights organizations want companies to ban the use of child labor as a part of their CSR. They argue that being socially responsibly all the way down to the end of the production chain, where the kids are cutting of loose threads from finished garments, can be used positively in marketing as well. Not only that, should the media find out that companies are using child labor, it would be bad PR, so it can also prevent public humiliation.
When pictures do reach the public and cause humiliation for the companies they are good at saying how they did not know anything about it and that they will take immediate action. A typical reaction would be that company X has fired supplier Z, burned all their clothes, given the kids and families money for food and schooling, and changed to supplier Y. What really happened is that supplier Z changed name to supplier Y and everything continuous just as before, now with a new sign on the door.
Do they really suffer?
While the pictures of women and children in sweatshops may be horrifying, what would the consequences of moving the production to more ‘acceptable’ accommodations be? As mentioned earlier, if these already poor people were to lose their only income, would they be in a better position than before? They may be having a hard time now, but imagine what sudden changes would do. Companies should be working towards slowly improving the quality of life at factories where they have their garments produced. The real issue however lies with government and the way international laws and regulations are implemented, or ignored, in the individual country. For all these changes to really work out, it is more important than ever, to appeal to the countries rather than the manufacturers. If the fashion brands or manufacturers start slacking and increase their prices, while the products remain the same, competitors will take over their share and kick them out of business, for good. That is how the situation looks right now at least, where CSR is only starting to become a noticeable factor for the consumers. However…
In the future
Bad working conditions are as described not only to be blamed on the companies, rather also the consumers always aiming to get clothes cheaper, not that one could blame them. There will be no changes in the near future, but as CSR becomes more important for the consumers, fashion brands will have to work towards fighting child labor, bad working conditions etcetera. To change all these bad things, the human rights organizations must reach out to the consumers, you… If you want to change these things, stop asking companies to change the things…
Be the change.
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