1.3 million people work in the garment industry in Bangladesh.
As companies want to make as much profit as possible, they are constantly looking for the cheapest production costs. This often means getting their clothes made in factories with the poorest working conditions and lowest wages, where there is little if any legislation to ensure ethical standards are upheld. This has led to many garment workers being exploited all over the world, including the UK.
Want to know how much money we spend in clothes shops each year? Well, in the UK alone we fork out £30 billion a year - that’s around £500 per person.
The care label inside our clothes tells us how best to treat the item – but it doesn’t tell us how the person who made it was treated.
Tearfund’s Lift the Label on fashion campaign is working alongside an organisation called Labour Behind the Label to support workers in the clothing industry.
The Bible tells us to clothe the poor – but today it is the poor who are clothing us.
The people who work to produce the clothes and food which end up in UK shops are often living in the world’s poorest countries and are usually among the most disadvantaged people in that country.
Many of these workers have no choice but to work 15-hour days, seven days a week in unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, all for a wage that is not enough to live on. And all to produce the clothes which eventually end up on the shelves of our high street shops. Click here to meet workers in a Bangladeshi garment factory.
Take action
Through Lift the Label Tearfund are calling on UK clothes retailers to join the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and therefore take responsibility for ensuring that the people making the clothes they sell are treated fairly. For more on ethical standards click here.
We want you to use your consumer power, make the ultimate fashion statement and 'Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy’ (Proverbs 31 v 8-9).
Take action now >>