Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. I hope you are all having a great week so far and are looking forward to the weekend ahead. Today I have another documentary review on a very eye-opening topic. Today I thought I would give you another little insight into the REAL fashion industry and the lives of the workers. After recently watching the documentary 'Fashion Factories Undercover' it brought back my concern for other peoples lives. We all love a good bargain but do we really care about the lives and danger of the people who make the clothes? The answer is most defiantly a NO! Many people head to the high street shops and go crazy with the bargains without even taking a second to think about where that item has come from and who created it. To be honest, neither do the companies selling the items. They only care about the profits made and making them fast. They don't have a single care about the workers or their safety. If they did, that item wouldn't not be on the racks and sweat shops wouldn't exist. Women, teenagers and even children are putting in hours upon hours a day to create our fashion and we don't even realise it. Many are even beaten, get verbal abuse and have intense pressure to reach deadlines all for us...
On 24th April 2013 one of the biggest accidents happen in our fashion industry but also one that could have been avoided. One of the largest fashion factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed taking around 1130 lives and taking limbs from others. Moments before the Rana Plaza factory collapsed, workers (mostly women and children) were working on orders from our high street stores. Many people were trapped for hours, even days, under the rubble before being freed to safety. However, many had to sacrifice parts of the bodies to be able to get out. One women named Anne was found the day after the building had collapsed. Her hand was trapped and she couldn't be freed. She was asked: Do you want your hand or do you want your life. This was the choice she had to make to get out. Lying there trapped and slowly dying of dehydration, one man had to cut off her hand with no proper equipment or pain relief just to get her out alive. She is no longer able to live her life fully all because of us. Another women named Roxanne was the same. She woke up after being trapped for hours only to find her leg missing. This was the only way to free her too. She is now unable to work and do daily chores simply because we want fashion and we want it fast. Although this terrible disaster happened it was expected and could have been avoided. 24hrs before the collapse officials had actually ordered an evacuation as it was dangerously unsafe for workers to be in there. There were huge cracks and crumbling on the walls, ceilings and pillars but the factory owner had ignored the evacuation and physically forced his staff in the next day. Some women were even dragged into the building and told they would loose their job if they didn't work. It just happen they lost they lives instead. The most disturbing thing of all is the companies getting their supplies from the factory actually knew about the safely issues but ignored it as they just wanted their goods. The factory couldn't afford to pay for repairs or to shut down so they carried on working instead. All our high street stores had to do was fund the repairs and the lives of the victims could have been spared.
Did you know we import a staggering £1.5 billion pounds of clothes a year simply for our high street stores alone. That makes us the third highest importers behind the USA and Germany. Many of the clothes we wear were created in the sweat shops in Bangladesh as it's the cheapest place for labour. Brands search all over the world for the cheapest sources and many go to Bangladesh as it is one of the poorest nations on the Earth. They don't care about the cost of peoples lives only that there clothing can be sourced cheap and fast. However, the cheaper it is the more likely the safely of the workers is ignore.
In the documentary two women went undercover as factory workers to show us what really happens behind closed doors. They bravely wore hidden cameras and the results were shocking. If you want to see for yourself then definitely check out the documentary. The two women uncover had worked in the factory industry for around 6 years and thought it was vital to show us what really happens to them during a day at work. These women work a 10-13 hour shift each day and the standard time to finish is around 7pm. However, many are forced to stay many hours later to finish large orders for our UK high street. From the secret cameras there is footage of a young girl being slapped and called a 'whore' by the male supervisor simply for talking. It also shows violent abuse towards a 14 year old girl because she wasn't 'working hard enough'. These women are constantly facing this day in day out as the men rule over the women in these industries.
At Olira Fashions, a large fashion factory in Bangladesh, the basic pay a month is the equivalent to £30. One of the women undercover worked a staggering 89hrs a week with no day off. She was also forced to do night shifts to finish the large orders. However, the law states that adult workers are not allowed to work more than 60hrs a week and children under the age of 18 cannot work in a factory for more than 5hrs a day. Although the footage shows them working around 11hrs a day; over double what the law states. Many of the 'women' working in these factories are aged between 11 and 14 years old. The owners do not care as long as they have people to finish the orders and make them money, even if it is going against the law. Another piece of footage shows one of the male supervisors shouting at one of the 14 year olds as she wasn't 'working hard enough'. He then beat her on the back with a fabric roll. These women and children go though this sort of abuse daily simply to give us cheap fashion. They are constantly working and have no time to even use the toilet. As soon as they have finished one task it is on to another.
The second women went undercover at Vase Apparels, another large fashion factory in Bangladesh. She supplied us with very similar footage proving what these women have to go through to live. She was employed as a helper to the cut off loose threads and was earning the equivalent of £6 a week! By the end of her shift her hands would be so sore and stiff. In this factory the workers were called into a meeting as the customer brands were visiting. The workers were told exactly what to say if they were asked questions all to make it look like the factory was abiding by the law, when in fact it wasn't. They were also told to sign health and safety sheets to say they have regular training when they had never had a single bit of training before. The reporters even acted as a potential customer and were lied to by the factory owner. He completely lied about the working hours and finishing times, the safety regulations and the working ages of his staff.Footage was also captured of the fire escapes having locks on and the toilets having no water and no way of closing the door except for a rope tied to it. This simply isn't right and women should haven't to work in these sorts of environments.
All our brand have to do is fund the factories more to make them a safer environment, constantly view and observe the workers to stop violence and improve safety and make sure they only get their supplies from safe suppliers. For us, we need to stop buying fast fashion or limit it to necessary items. This will help decrease the amount of orders the factories have and improve the lives of the women and children working in these factories. If you really want to make a difference to others lives then stop buying fast fashion all together. Buying second hand clothing is a great way to avoid this or simply checking the labels to see where the product was made. If you want to learn more about sweat shops and see the footage captured then I would highly recommend checking out the documentary and seeing it for yourself.
I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a little bit more about what really goes on behind closed doors in the fashion factories and maybe it opened your eyes to the truth. If you want to learn about more fashion topics then make sure you head every Friday for more. If you would also like to see outfit styling posts from me them make sure you head over to my blog every Wednesday too. I hope to see you back here again soon...
Emma Victoria
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