St. John's
Global Fashion Industry

Hello, my name is Aaron and my name is Catharine.
We are from St. John’s School in Fulham.

The Earth Summit in Johannesburg has made us aware that we have to take care of our planet to achieve a fair, peaceful and sustainable future for all. We need to ensure that everyone in the world has a fair share of resources. But how do we do this? Of course we know that the world is not a totally equal place and yes, there is poverty and pollution. The problem seems insurmountable but there are little things that you and I can do to make a difference. Today we want to tell you about the unfair practices going on in the global fashion industry and how some people are getting less than their fare share of life’s resources.

We started off our research in class by looking at some photographs of people working in different countries. We were appalled at what we saw. There were young children working in the factories, people walking miles for their water, others working in cramped conditions and more. And these people were working to make clothes for us. We don’t give a second thought about where our clothes come from and how they were made.
Do you know where you clothes come from?

We went home and looked through our wardrobes. Here’s a small selection of countries that our clothes were imported from:
Cambodia
Vietnam
China
The Philippines
India
Sri Lanka
Indonesia
Bangladesh
Cyprus and Brazil

The list seemed like it would go on forever. We found clothes from all over the world.

You see that many of these developing countries where people are working under stressful, cramped and miserable conditions and are being paid a pittance for their labours.

We gathered some information from the internet, the library, Oxfam and everyone in the class had the opportunity to put questions to representatives from the No Sweat Campaign, Friends of the Earth, Marks and Spencer, Traidcraft and two Kingston University Students.

The more we listened to what they said and what we read, the more evidence we found of people living in poverty just so that we in the West can look trendy and fashionable. They work long hours in hot sweaty conditions for very low wages.

Sweat-shops in these poor countries smell of powerful solvents and the workers have no protection.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that these practices don’t go on nearer home. We still have sweat-shops in the U.K. Mick Duncan from the No-Sweat campaign told us he often visits factories in the East End of London campaigning for fairer rights for workers. Of course, not all factories are going to take notice, but everyone that does listen makes a difference to the lives of many people.

Another fact we found out is that half of the footballs made for the USA market are manufactured in Pakistan. The footballs are hand sewn by girls under 14 years old. They work for 3 hours on each ball and sew 2 or 3 every day but are paid less than 50 pence for each ball and they never get to play with one!
Think about that next time you play football or watch a football match!

In Indonesia many families are duped by ‘middle-men’ who promise that they can find decent jobs in the city but the whole thing is just a con. When they arrive in the city they find a different story. They are forced to live in shanty towns and made to work long hours.

A famous brand of clothing we researched export their materials and have the clothes made up in the East because it would be more expensive to pay workers in their own country. And then, when that becomes too expensive, they close down their factory and move elsewhere. Labour is cheaper abroad but lives are not cheap.

However, not all factories are bad. We did find factories that were clean and conscious of Health and Safety issues and paid their workers a fairer wage. Mary Corrall from Traidcraft told us that their workers are treated fairly, paid a decent wage and are well looked after. So it can be done.

As part of our research we visited Marks and Spencer in Hammersmith. A member of their team, Lyn Wagstaff, told us that 50% of M&S clothes were made in Hong Kong and that Marks and Spencer have a shop over there.

So, we set up a link with a school in Hong Kong and we have emailed the class a set of questions for them to answer. We want to know if any of them shop at Marks and Spencer and if they can find out about clothing factories there. We hope to continue this link throughout the year. We are hoping to make other young people aware of unfair practices going on.

We also intend to present our report to the Annual meeting of parents later on in the year and are in the process of making posters to display around the school.

When we spoke to Hesham Elkomy and Shelley McCarthy from Kingston University, they said they liked to think they looked trendy and fashionable - who doesn’t? After speaking with us they said they would think seriously about where they buy their clothes from.

Mick Duncan from ‘No Sweat” agreed that it’s difficult to change overnight. You may think ‘Well, what difference can I make?’ But you can. We didn’t know that children as young as 3 years old work in clothing factories. We didn’t know that some people work with poisonous chemicals. We didn’t know that some workers are paid less than 50 pence for hours of work. Any maybe you didn’t.

But you do now and you can’t ignore it. We need to look towards the future. What will be the state of the Earth in 100 years’ time if we ignore these practices? Together, we can make sure that everyone has affair share of the world’s resources. Mike Lachowicz from Friends of the Earth told us about companies that have a Fair Trade policy. These are the shops we should be buying our clothes from.

We can make a difference.