Relationship Between Ethically Responsible Clothing And Human Rights

By Sarah J Jones

With the passage of time, awareness has significantly grown amongst people with regards to ethically responsible clothing. This awareness has led to an increase in demand of such clothes for the betterment of the society as a whole. To fully comprehend the concept of ethically responsible clothing and its affiliation with human rights, it is of foremost importance to understand the definition of ethically responsible clothing.

As a part of ethical consumerism, ethically responsible clothing includes the clothes which are manufactured in an ethical method. The thought of purchasing ethically made products relates to ethical consumerism, in which a consumer makes sure that no animals, humans and nature are being damaged or harmed during its process. The consumer wants to ensure that the poor people who worked in the manufacturing of the clothes were treated properly and were provided with good and healthy conditions to work in. Basically, ethically responsible clothing safeguards the human beings who are working hard to produce the clothes.

The labour class, in most of the developing countries, is not treated fairly because they are not educated and have zero knowledge about their rights while they are working. Not only men and women but also the children work in such factories where it is not safe to breathe; but, to get merely small amounts of money, they get ready to work. Unfortunately, due to their lack of knowledge, the companies they work for, take benefit of them and fail to take care of the condition of their employee.

The basic idea behind ethically responsible clothing is to protect the rights of the labour, who deserve to be treated well, given good salaries and working conditions, even if they are poor and uneducated.

The basic idea, which promulgated the ideology of ethical clothing, was because of the terrible working conditions that the poor labourers had to endure. Big and recognized companies exploited the desperation of the lower class workers in third world countries, to decrease cost of production and increase profits. These workers had to do their jobs under terrible working conditions and ambiance and they got no time off in a week. Certain companies compelled them to work for more than 60 hours per week, which is beyond the endurance capacity of any human. These workers had to go through verbal and sexual abuse of their supervisors, and to top it all, they were not fairly paid.

The objective of ethically responsible clothing is to ensure that these workers are paid fairly and up to the specified amounts that are set by the government so they can, with much convenience, run their homes and feed their families. These workers have the right to basic education, not only for themselves but for their children too. They should be aware of their own rights and the labour laws and standards. These people should get some off days. They have every right to get a maternity leave, a sick leave etc. Safeguard of human rights is promoted with ethically responsible clothing. - 29959

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