Desk Report: Today, 23 April 2018, Fashion Revolution holds Fashion Question Time at the Houses of Parliament to explore if the fashion industry is a better place for women to work five years on from Rana Plaza.Hosted and chaired by Mary Creagh MP, the panel follows a BBC Question Time format and brings together leading figures across government and the textile industry to discuss the steps needed to create revolutionary change in the fashion industry.
Photo: Fashion Revolution
The event has marked the start of Fashion Revolution Week 2018, April 23-29, a global campaign sparking a wider public conversation about the impacts of our clothes on the people who make them.
April 2018 will be the five year anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse and 5 years since Fashion Revolution was born. During that time, millions of people have joined Fashion Revolution to demand a fairer, more transparent industry.
Speakers included Lord Bates, Minister of State at the Department for International Development, Rushanara Ali MP, Gerry Boyle, Senior Policy Adviser, Women’s Economic Empowerment, CARE International,Adil Rehman, Ethical Trade Manager, ASOS, Sarah Ashwin, Professor of Comparative Employment Relations,LSE ;Osola de Castro and Carry Somers, Fashion Revolution Co-Founders.
Mary Creagh MP said: “Five years on from the Rana Plaza disaster I am pleased to be hosting Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Question Time in Parliament. The majority of the victims in the Rana Plaza disaster were women. 80% of the world’s 75m garment workers are women. We will be looking at the improvements and challenges they face, and asking whether the fashion industry has cleaned up its act.”
Carry Somers, Global Operations Director and Founder of Fashion Revolution stated: “Five years ago, the Rana Plaza factory collapse shook the fashion world and ignited a Fashion Revolution. Five years of Fashion Revolution means five years of millions of people using their voices and their power to call for greater transparency. And it’s working. We are now the world’s largest fashion activism movement. We have counted 152 large brands publishing a list of the facilities where their clothes are made.
“But we still have a long way to go until everyone who makes our clothes can live and work with dignity, in healthy conditions and without fear of losing their life. Poverty, human rights, fair wages, freedom associate, discrimination, environmental pollution, waste and transparency all remain endemic within fashion.Every day people are risking their lives to make our clothes. This is why we still need a Fashion Revolution.” Somers added.
Fashion Revolution seeks to ignite a revolution to radically transform the way our clothes are sourced, produced and purchased, by demanding greater transparency with one simple question: Who Made My Clothes?
