Blood Sweat and T-Shirts: coming face to face with child labour
Last night we saw the final instalment of Blood Sweat and T-shirts, the BBC3 reality TV show about the garment industry in India. We have been fairly critical of the show in previous weeks since it has seemed to focus on the Brit’s shock at their living conditions, but last night’s episode managed to present some really powerful messages and hopefully left viewers with a clear understanding of some of the difficult debates in ethical trade.
This week the young fashionistas found themselves in the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai, where amongst the warren of backstreets and open sewers they saw factories making and embroidering clothes for the UK and US market. In these small backrooms, workers worked from 8am – 10pm in dangerous and unhygienic conditions. The workers were earning about £3.20 a day.
The group were horrified at the low levels of health and safety in the factories. Stacey, a 20 year old shop assistant from Luton, expressed her horror at the conditions, saying: “a safe working environment, where you’re not going to die of disease is not a lot to ask for.”
As they came to terms with the working environment, and saw how critical these jobs were to workers (who were earning twice the average wage of cotton pickers), they started to change their minds about the factories, realising that there was little point in naming and shaming companies sourcing from these factories, since this would mean the workers might lose their jobs. As Richard, a 24 year old advertising executive comments:
“We are not really doing anything wrong as a UK consumer. If anything we are being a massive help to these guys, because if it wasn’t for us buying their clothes then as people keep pointing out, these guys wouldn’t have a job and if we think that the conditions here are bad now, you wait ‘til all the UK consumers revolt and turn around and say ‘actually we’re not going to buy any clothes from India anymore because we’re not happy with the conditions’ you wait to see what the conditions are like in a year.”
The group discovered that one of the biggest problems in Dharavi, is the use of child labour in the garment industry. The girls interviewed one of their fellow workers in the factory who had been working in the factory since he was 10. They joined Satish, an enforcement officer with an NGO working to eliminate child labour in the garment industry. In one factory they found one young boy hiding behind a loom, he looked no older than 13. Satish and the girls questioned the boy about his age, and why he was in the factory, as he looked on terrified. It powerfully demonstrated the importance of dealing with the issue of child labour in a very sensitive manner. Impactt has developed a series of child labour guidelines which are currently being reviewed in consultation with stakeholders.
The series finished with a visit to a school set up for rescued child labourers, where the children’s young age and vulnerability was starkly evident.
At the end of this controversial and challenging series, we were extremely pleased to see that some serious issues were raised and difficult questions posed. The group left India with a better idea of why workers were willing to put up with such poor working conditions and why children are so commonly forced to work.
We thought we should leave the last word to Tara, a budding fashion designer.
“The dilemma that I’ve got is that I really can’t condone the conditions of some of the factories that we’ve visited but I can’t really condemn them because they are providing people with jobs and with roofs over their heads.”
3 Comments
Hi,
It was relly great program. Finally child labour problem on TV.
Children shouldn´t work. They should play and learn and just be happy.
I am Centras Saint Martins fashion design
student. We did a collection against child labour “dream a little dream”, making 3 garments. Each of them represents an idea what children should live their childhood: play, learn and just be children.
We a competition at our university and exhibited our work in Manchester.
These 3 garments are perfect instalation for window display. It is very colourful, peaceful, but still presents the mesege.
Please text me if you have a interest.
Thank you
[...] been hooked on a riveting BBC3 series [...]
[...] Panorama’s ‘Primark on the rack’ (BBC1, 9pm, 23 June 2008) and the BBC reality TV programme Blood, Sweat and T-shirts.The report highlights the paradox of a spending culture that has seen the average number of items [...]