With the passage of time, awareness has significantly grown amongst people with regards to ethically responsible clothing. This awareness has led to an increase in demand of such clothes for the betterment of the society as a whole. To fully comprehend the concept of ethically responsible clothing and its affiliation with human rights, it is of foremost importance to understand the definition of ethically responsible clothing.
Ethically responsible clothing is a part of ethical consumerism. Ethical consumerism is the idea of purchasing such products intentionally, which are made in an ethical way. This means considering the aspects of no harm being done to the humans, animals or the entire natural environment in any way. Therefore, the term ethical clothing depicts purchasing and consuming clothes that are manufactured, created and produced in developing and poor countries under specified, fair and healthy working conditions, and in a safe environment. The basic idea of ethical clothing is to shield the respect of human beings in factories around the world.
As far as developing nations are brought into consideration, due to economical disparities, the working class labour there is treated very unfairly. Men, women and even children are willing to risk their lives by breathing and working in unsafe and insecure environments, merely to earn very insignificant and inappropriate sum of money. Since they are living in under-developed areas, are uneducated with regards to their rights, and are willing to compromise anything to satisfy the basic needs of food, clothes and shelter, these people are mistreated and are taken advantage of by many large companies.
Ethical clothing promotes the cause that a worker, even though from poor and under-developed areas, should be given fair wages and should be given fair comforts and facilities that he rightfully deserves.
The basic idea which promulgated the ideology of ethical clothing was because of the terrible working conditions that poor labourers had to endure. Big and recognized companies exploited the desperation of the lower class workers in third world countries, to decrease cost of production and increase profits. These workers had to do their jobs under terrible working conditions and ambiance and they got no time off in a week. Certain companies compelled them to work for more than 60 hours per week, which is beyond the endurance capacity of any human. These workers had to go through verbal and sexual abuse of their supervisors and to top it all, they were not fairly paid.
Ethically responsible clothing’s objective is to ensure that these workers are paid fairly and up to the specified amounts that are set by the government so they can, with much convenience, run their homes and feed their families. These workers have the right to basic education, not only for themselves but for their children too. They should be aware of their own rights and the labour laws and standards. These people should get some off days. They have every right to get a maternity leave, a sick leave etc. Safeguard of human rights is promoted with ethically responsible clothing.