Reply #8: Yes. +1 The corporations have a choice. They choose to be cruel

[Catherina]

Fair trade. Not free trade!




Jo Wood, founder of Jo Wood Organics, who recently made a trip to Bangladesh with the ethical clothing brand, People Tree, to witness the acute difference between the lifestyles of garment workers employed by fair trade producer groups and those subject to exploitative free-market conditions.

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Accompanied by Safia Minney, the founder of People Tree, Wood's trip to Bangladesh took in two diametrically opposed communities. The first destination was Swallows, a fair trade producer group located in Thanapara, a remote rural village in north-west Bangladesh. A supplier to People Tree, it is a model of how fair trade garment production can work sustainably.

"At Swallows, it was a warm community of women who all have a great sense of independence but also work so well together in good conditions," says Wood. "The village they live in is totally self-sufficient, yet it is miles away from what we would term civilisation. They have a school, a crèche for the younger children, learning programs and an organic garden."

In contrast, a few days later, Wood visited slum-dwellers in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, where she was faced with a more brutal way of life she describes as "survival of the fittest". With no access to ethical employment, "up to six people live in a tin room on bamboo stilts above heaps of rubbish, and they pay 900 taka rent each for a bed," says Wood. "Considering they earn 1662 per taka month, way below the minimum wage of 4000 taka, it isn't hard to work out how wrong this is."

In her video diary, it's obvious how distressing Wood finds the experience of visiting the slums, and hearing how these women are not only faced with limited sanitation and poor health, but also separation from their children. "The conditions that they lived in the slums were appalling: the rubbish, the smell and the poverty," says Wood. "Yet I was humbled by the people and their attitudes. They were still so positive and cheerful."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/29/bangladesh-garment-workers-jo-wood