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I am a writer and executive administrator for Trusted Clothes, which is an ethical and sustainable fashion organization. The following is a series devoted in honor of the work done in collaboration with the Schroeckers and the Trusted Clothes team.
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Child Labor and fashion victims
One of the major issues and ethical fashion is child labor. We can find this in millions and millions of children that are working, let alone in substandard conditions and pay, and often in what might most accurately be termed as slave labor.
Child labor persists in much of the developing world. Children are made slaves to the fashion industry in a literal sense rather than in the consumers’ sense. These children work hard hours even by adult standards from the developed world. They are abused, malnourished and violated- stripped off of their human rights.
The obvious answer is to help these children. We can help them with food, funding, and education. There are several organisations where we can get involved in helping these young children out of these conditions.
Indirectly, we can make better decisions in terms of our consumer choices and support relevant, trustworthy, non-profit/not-for-profit organizations. Consumer choices in terms of clothing, footwear, and any other purchases we make. It’s a necessary thing to do in the modern era.
The children need our help.
Children are some of the most powerless in the fashion garment industry production line and supply chains. And some of the most powerless in the world with each generation.
Imagine that this is your life or that your child was stripped of all possible dreams and hopes for the future because of poverty and having to work at such a young age. Imagine if your child was stripped of human rights and child rights.
To me, it seems not only a sense of children’s rights to not have to work. It seems to me like the right for children to have a childhood. A childhood with proper nutrition, education, love, care, and play. I don’t think children deserve to be working in these conditions, or at all working. It’s ridiculous.
Now, I ask you about child labor. Is deprivation of a childhood abuse? Is interference of regular school attendance abuse? Is this possibly mentally and emotionally harmful? Is it physically harmful to the children?
Do you think they actually have safe regulations for the kids? I don’t think so. I don’t think that these people have adequate provisions of any of these. I think that they have lost their childhood or are in the process of losing it, don’t attend school as they should.
We can see the rise of child slavery world wide. There are hundreds of millions of kids likely working in child labor. I mean, there are estimates that it’s around 200 million total. But how many can actually document properly? It’s a very difficult problem because these are violations of human and child rights by their very nature.
That means that the reportage on the number of them might not necessarily be accurate, and we would have good reason to think of these estimates as lower than the actual rate. I think it’s a travesty. I think this is morally outrageous that so many children are suffering in abominable ways throughout the world.
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Original publication on www.trustedclothes.com.
All images courtesy of www.trustedclothes.com.