#free trade
Two women work for Global Mamas in Ghana.
Child labor, minimal pay, unreasonable hours, workplace harassment and unsafe working conditions sound like a textbook description of Industrial Revolution-era factories. Unfortunately, millions of people around the world continue to work under these conditions. Companies either known or rumored to use sweatshops produced the clothes and shoes you’re probably wearing right now: Disney, Sears, Victoria’s Secret, J. Crew, Nordstrom, Gap, JC Penney, Converse, Macy’s, Billabong, Adidas, and Walmart, to name a few.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. Fair Trade fashion is just that: Fair. A fair trade business produces goods in a way that treats workers fairly, invests in and supports their communities, and is environmentally responsible. A fair trade product can be certified by a few different Fair Trade organizations, but they have similar standards (pardon the opinion, but these are standards that should be expected of every business). Alice Grau of Global Mamas weighed in on what she sees as the future of fair trade fashion.
“Consumers are getting more educated about what fast fashion means and what cheap fashion means for the people that are creating the fashion.” Alice said fair trade has gained more attention since April of 2013, when a Bangladesh factory collapsed, killing over 1,000 people and injuring 2,500. She added, :The more consumers become educated, and the more willing they are to buy fewer things at a higher cost, I think that will start to change things for our market.“
Global Mamas is currently in the fundraising process for a Fair Trade Zone, a manufacturing facility constructed in an environmentally friendly way that will employ 200 Ghanian women. "We’re basically turning the whole fashion factory model on its head and making it fair trade. Nobody said that the factory model is bad, it’s just how the workers are treated in the model that’s the problem.”
The fair trade market is growing fast, but it has yet to become the mainstream, conventional business norm. “We would like fair trade fashion to just be fashion,” Alice said. “We would love for everybody to produce products in a fair and socially responsible manner.”
To learn more about fair trade, visit these organizations’ websites:
Kenya, Mali and their USA agreements – AFRICAN TRADE BUSINESS INSIGHTS
“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, we look forward to negotiating and concluding a comprehensive, high-standard agreement with Kenya that can serve as a model for additional agreements across Africa,” said U.S. Ambassador Robert Lighthizer in a joint U.S.-Kenya statement.
The first round of discussions would of…
