When Fair Trade Meets Fashion

posted Jan 14, 2012 12:27 AM by Sara Little

Being an ethical consumer can affect your entire life. It affects what you eat, what you drink, the gifts you give, and especially what you wear. Sadly the truth for Americans is that most of the clothing that we buy and wear is made in a sweatshop, from the hats on our heads to the shoes on our feet.
There are multiple causes to this blatant infraction of human rights. One issue is that many of the countries that harbor these sweatshops do not have the infrastructure to enforce international labor laws. However, sweatshops can be found anywhere, including the United States. Another issue is that many large corporations will pressure manufacturing facilities for cheaper goods. This gives them incentives to pay their workers less and make them work for longer hours.

However, one major cause that consumers have control over is ignorance. When we do not take the time to research all that why buy, we are kept in the dark about where our clothes and other products come from. In fact many corporations do not intentionally use sweatshops, but simply do not look into their own factories, keeping the conditions of their workers out of sight and out of mind. If we took the time to look and enlighten ourselves on the matter we would find the thousands of women and children forced to work over 10 hours a day and 7 days a week for pennies an hour.
So what is it that we can do? Most of us are not in a position to change corporate policy, but as consumers there are ways that we can influence the market towards change.

Shop Fair Trade: As we've said before, by shopping at stores like The Welcome Mat we support ethical companies that pay their workers fair wages. This can be done with clothing too! Buying fair trade clothing is supporting ethical manufacturing and not sweatshop labor.
Shop Second Hand: Second hand stores, and thrift shops sell lightly used clothing that has already been bought from other stores, so this time the money we spend on these items goes towards the seller and not the manufacturer.
Stay Informed: The market is always changing, and there are always new ethical companies starting, and always new information regarding other companies. By doing our research and staying informed we are aware of which companies are ethical and which are not. Using this information to our advantage and spreading the word keeps consumers out of ignorance to the problems of the world such as sweatshop labor.

As consumer's we have a voice, and that is what fair trade is all about! Every dollar we spend is a vote, and when we vote for ethical products we show companies that we care about where our clothes come from, and we actually make a difference with our dollars.

Here are a few companies that sell fair trade clothing:

http://www.tompkinspoint.com/social.php?link=fairtrade

http://www.maggiesorganics.com/2010_fairlabor.php

http://www.haenow.com/cart/whyfairtrade.php

http://www.goodandfairclothing.com/about.php

When Fair Trade Meets Fashion

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