Top Designers support Fair Trade Cotton Campaign
Posted by sally, May 14, 2010
Credit EJF
The likes of John Rocha, Luella Bartley, Katharine Hamnett and Christian Laxcroix amongst others have designed t-shirts for the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). The designer t’s are made from fairly traded organic cotton from Turkey and are inspired by the theme, “childhood, lost innocence and hope”.
EJF recently released a report “Slave Nation” as part of their campaign to end child labour in Uzbekistan. The report highlights the plight of 100′s of 1000′s of children who labour in the country’s annual cotton harvest. Reports in November 2009 estimated that 1 million children worked during the last harvest. They receive little or no payment, perhaps a few US cents per kilo. However food and travel costs are deducted so they often leave in debt and in poor physical condition after 2 months of labouring surviving on a diet lacking in nutrition and drinking water from irrigation pipes.
Uzbekistan is the world’s 3rd largest cotton exporter and earns around US$1billion annually from the sale of it’s cotton to clothing factories primarily in Asia, who in turn export garments to the West and to cotton traders, many of which are based in Europe.
The t-shirts are £30 and sales will support EJF’s ongoing international work.
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