This impact story is brought to you by Global Poverty Project

WHAT'S THE ISSUE?

Our want for fashion should not come as a price to others. The clothes we buy should lift people out of extreme poverty and not trap them in it.

See Through Fashion was the first campaign run through the Global Citizen platform in the UK. The campaign aimed to secure five large corporate signatures to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord which ensures that no major British retailer sells clothes made by workers using unsafe factory buildings.

We committed to this campaign in response to the world’s biggest ever industrial collapse, Rana Plaza, and because despite the textile industry being the largest employer in Bangladesh and a major supplier of clothes to British fashion, millions of garment workers were still living below the extreme poverty line. There are currently four million people making clothes, 3.6 million of whom are women. The industry operates without any transparency whatsoever. It is almost impossible for a consumer to know how, or in what conditions, their clothes are made. The Bangladesh Safety Accord is a first step toward addressing this problem, requiring all signatories to publicly release information about their supply chains and creates a legal framework to protect workers against unsafe conditions. This is a big step forward in the fight for transparency and fairness in the production of clothes. Importantly, though our focus was on British retailers, the impact is Global.

HOW DID GLOBAL CITIZENS RESPOND?

Global citizens in the UK have written thousands of e-mails letters, tweets, and facebook posts each week targeted at key companies. Global Poverty Project placed articles in both news and fashion press, including being profiled during London’s Fashion Week.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT?

4 of the 5 companies we targeted to sign the Bangladeshi Safety Accord have now signed. Public attention resulting from campaigning on this issue helped create a 70% increase in the basic wage of garment workers in Bangladesh.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The global citizen team in the UK continue to scope for opportunities to shine a spotlight on the textile industry in Bangladesh and other issues where poverty can be relieved by addressing unfair corporate practices.