Treat well the ones who make your clothes and shoes
Recently I was looking for a new pair of shoes but I was pained to think of supporting sweatshop labor because many shoes are made in sweat shops. There are a few strategies I thought of to avoid purchasing from a sweatshop. One strategy is to buy shoes made in a county that has labor laws like the US, Canada, or Italy for example. My next attempt was to search for sweat shop free shoes using the internet. There were few suppliers who I was able to find. Some had already sold out to bigger companies and are now said to be sweatshop labor. Others had gone out of business completely.
Then I found a promising looking company called Sole Rebels. www.solerebels.com Their site boasts they are “the world’s first and only World Fair Trade Federation [WFTO] FAIR TRADE certified footwear company AND the very 1st global footwear brand to ever emerge from a developing nation!” There is a wide variety of styles and choices. There seems to be around 100 styles just in the men’s section. The bottoms of the shoes are made from old tires. The rubber tire portion is thin, which makes them light weight and comfortable.
The Company is based in Ethiopia. They ship everywhere on the planet and shipping is always free. The website says it takes 15-20 working days to make your shoes and up to another 3-5 days to deliver them. My sister purchased a pair for me and the order took 2 moths to arrive. It was around Christmas so perhaps they were overwhelmed with orders. She was not happy with the delay and had her credit card company refund the charges and said it was only after that they were provoked to ship. She did pay once they arrived.
When the shoes arrived they were slightly different than what was pictured on the website. The stitching was black instead of white and the leather in the picture looked gray and black and when they arrived both parts were black. I did not mind the minor surprise changes. I couldn’t believe how light the package was. The shoes are enjoyably light weight. I think they cost $89.00 US dollars. I would buy from them again.
While writing this I noticed another fair trade shoe company called Oliberté. www.oliberte.com
Additionally I came across a company who makes clothing with options like organic cotton, and Fair Trade Factory Certified.
One of the rules of a “Fair Trade Factory” insures that the workers are paid living wages for the area that the factory is located. And they are routinely audited to ensure that they are continuously following all the rules. The company is called Prana. www.prana.com
My mother bought me a pair of pants from the Prana company this year for Christmas. The cut of the pants was called Tucson Pant. They are a slim fitting pant. I found them to be a little tight in the calf. The company located in California and they were good about returns and exchanges. I like the quality of the fabric and the color. Be careful when shopping on the website because each different style may or may not be made of organic cotton and or made in a fair trade factory. It is great to be able to find clothing options that are not exploiting the workers. The other option is to buy used clothing so not to support the big companies relying on sweatshop labor. But buying new from a company that is not putting pesticides into farmland and farm-workers and your body for that matter seems a better choice if you can afford it.
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