[Music]
hi everyone so today is International
Women's Day and because of that I wanted
to talk about and give some thought to
the women who make our clothes according
to the clean clothes campaign around 80
percent of garment workers are women and
there is unfortunately a lot of gender
discrimination through their various
studies and I will include links to
reports and other information below they
found that women can be paid less for
the same work in many cases unions
aren't allowed so there is no way for
people to fight for their rights bonded
labor can also happen which is basically
where factories withhold wages so the
workers are stuck working there the
workers rights consortium also found
pregnancy based discrimination where
women were fired for becoming pregnant
or part of their work contract included
that they could not become pregnant
harassment and abuse are also huge
problems in the garment industry a
sisters for Change report which focused
on garment workers in Bangalore India
found that one out of 14 women had
experienced physical violence and one
out of seven women had been raped or
forced to commit a sexual act and the
majority of these cases of harassment
and violence are committed by
supervisors and managers and this is why
it is so important for companies to know
what is going on in their factories
I also fairly recently learned about the
pretty strong connection between human
and sex trafficking and the apparel
industry threadbare is a book which I
talked about in a my5 this summer which
goes into this and vice news also has a
piece which is difficult to watch but I
really recommend watching it and I will
link in the cards and they talk about
sex work in Cambodia and how that is
tied into the garment industry where
basically women are being rescued from
prostitution and forced to work in
factories and some of the women talk
about how the conditions in the
factories are so terrible and the pay is
so bad that they would rather choose
prostitution over garment work but they
don't really have any
options honestly there are tons of
studies in cases and I will link to some
organizations and more information down
below if you want to read more about it
but I hope that it is clear that life
for garment workers can be pretty
terrible so what can we do about it
we need companies to be more transparent
and not only be transparent with us as
consumers but the companies need to know
how their clothes are being made a great
thing you can do is ask questions and
pressure companies to provide more
information and be more transparent try
your best to buy clothes that align with
your values now I've talked in other
videos about how it can be difficult to
find things that you know check all the
boxes and you're not going to find
clothes that are perfect but try your
best to find companies that at least are
trying to make things better and there's
also other options shopping secondhand
for example means that you're not giving
your money to these companies just
wearing your clothes more and for a
longer time and care for them properly
so that you're not constantly buying new
clothes there are lots of different ways
to have a more conscious closet and this
is a bit of a rant but something that
drives me crazy is brands that promote
women empowerment and that women
empowerment is only for their customers
and does not in any way extend to the
women who are making their clothes
there are various cases of this the one
that was I guess pretty well known was
Beyonce's Ivy Park line which was again
all about empowering women but it was
found that women were working for very
little money making those clothes you
can't have a brand that is about
empowering women which takes advantage
of the women making the clothes so that
the women buying the clothes can have
them cheaper as you guys know if you
watch my channel I definitely prefer to
talk about the positive stories and
positive aspects about sustainable and
ethical fashion and not as many of these
negative things but I do think that they
are important to occasionally talk about
in to definitely to be aware of but I
don't want to leave you with just that
so I have written a blog post about
some amazing brands who actually empower
and support women pay them fairly have
safe working conditions have ways that
women can file grievances if there are
any issues often have community projects
and just actually care about the people
working for them so I will link that
down below I think I just want to end by
saying that a lot of hands have touched
the clothes you are wearing and through
your wardrobe you are connected to
people mostly women all around the world
and let's just give some thought to them
and how we can improve things in the
fashion industry thank you for watching
I would love to hear thoughts in the
comments and thank you so much to those
of you supporting me on patreon I hope
that you got something out of this video
it was a video that I just really wanted
to make and I will see you next time in
a more positive video
[Music]
you