A T-shirt thread.

1/ Retailers, online websites and charities all jumped on the BLM merchandise bandwagon. Much of this will have been made in sweatshops worldwide.

This is how cotton is produced.

Don’t these lives mater?

2/ Ethical inspections are the “get out clause” for most retailers. Some, such as Amazon don’t bother at all and only a handful audit their cradle to grave supply chain. Which is why we still have cotton slavery

3/ 18 countries use child labour to produce cotton and 9 use forced labour, 8 use a mix of both

Children plough, weed, sow, remove pests, spray toxic pesticides and are present in the fields whilst spraying, also cross pollinate plants by hand

4/ The Uzbek government forces 1.5 to 2 million children as young as 9 into the cotton industry.

Children live in filthy conditions (in unheated, non-insulated field barracks).

They often contract illnesses and receive little to no pay.

5/ Nepali cotton children are trafficked to India, mostly young girls sold by their families with the promise of education and marriage. In reality they get neither.

6/ In Egypt, an estimated 1 million children aged between 7 and 12 work with cotton plants each yr. They work 11 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Abuses include exposure to pesticides, beatings from foremen and overwork. Physical & sexual abuse is widely reported.

7/ Turkic minority Muslim women and their children are forced to work in cotton fields under threat of being sent to re education camps, for no pay.

8/ Garment finishing in factories (including in the UK as you have just discovered) is the backbone of not only the fast fashion industry, but also the higher end brands. Only legislation and consumer demand can stop it.

God what a stupid comment.