Shop, sleep, trash, repeat
Approximately 75 million people work to make our clothes. 80% of them are women between the ages of 18 and 35. However, the majority of people who make clothes for the global market live in poverty, unable to afford life’s basic necessities. Many are subject to exploitation; verbal and physical abuse, working in unsafe and dirty conditions, with very little pay.
On average, 100 pairs of hands touch our clothes before they get to us. There is no such thing as cheap labour. Someone, somewhere always pays the price.
Re-Dress and artist Mark Fitz produced the living wage graphic to be was used all over the EU to highlight the clothing industry’s dependency on cheap labour. It was pasted up all over Dublin city to mark the Rana Plaza Factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013
Source: Mark Fitz, Re-Dress
Year: 2015
Courtesy of Rosie O’Reilly
Produced by: Just Forests
Format: rescued wood sample
Year: 1987
Courtesy of Tom Roche
Irish Global Solidarity in 100 Objects is organised by developmenteducation.ie, an online hub focused on learning about the unequal and unjust shape of the world today, and is coordinated by Aidlink, Concern Worldwide, the Irish Development Education Association, the National Youth Council of Ireland, Self Help Africa, Trócaire and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World.
DevelopmentEducation.ie is part funded by Irish Aid.
