The textile industry is the largest employer in Bangladesh. There are currently 4m people making clothes, 3.6m of these are women.

A recent doubling of Bangladeshi wages has lifted many to the cusp of the extreme poverty line. However, this does not take into account family dependents. With the overwhelming majority of workers being women and the average Bangladeshi woman have more than 2 children, hundreds of thousands are still considered to be in extreme poverty.

These workers deserve and need our support. As consumers we have the power to make their lives, and the lives of their families, better. Our shopping habits can have a huge impact on extreme poverty levels across Bangladesh simply by securing decent working conditions for the workers.

Safe Conditions

Our want for fashion should not come at the price of others. The clothes we buy should lift people out of extreme poverty and not trap them in it. This campaign will seek to secure the final five signatures to the Bangladesh Safety Accord, ensuring that no British high street retailer sells clothes made by workers using unsafe factory buildings.

Transparency

The fashion industry operates without any transparency whatsoever - it almost impossible for a consumer to know how their clothes are made and in what conditions. We believe that the power of the consumer should be used for more than just to demand cheap clothing. We should have a genuine choice about where we want to shop, based on information about where our clothes are made.

The Bangladesh Safety Accord begins this process by requiring all signees to public their supply chains. This is one big step in the fight for transparency and fairness.

Decent Pay

Workers in Bangladesh garment industry are, on average, paid around 15p an hour. We don’t believe that this is a fair or decent wage and are calling on an immediate increase of the minimum wage by the Bangladeshi government. Consideration is underway but there are a number of obstacles before the rate is raised once more.