Loving your global neighbour

If I were to ask you: "Where is your dress from?", what would your reply be?

I'll hold on while you check the label. What does the cotton stitching read?

Zara? Topshop?

Ah yes, just last season's ASOS that you threw on this morning. It looks great, by the way. Really brings out your eyes. Doesn't make your butt look big at all.

But that's not what I meant.

Now check the other label. The one that tells you that your dress is 97% polyester and 3% elastane, whatever that means, with all those weird washing symbols that only your mum understands. The one that you've probably cut out because it tickled your thighs when you sat down.

Found it? Great. Now look really, really closely. In a small, sans serif font, probably capitalised...Can you see it? Those three little words that no one pays much attention to. The ones that manufacturers are obligated to declare on your purchases, that tell you that your dress was MADE IN CAMBODIA. Or is it Bangladesh? Or Turkey?

Your outfit is probably better travelled than you will ever be. It has seen parts of the world that I would struggle locate on a map. But most of us don't pay attention to that.

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What does Jesus mean when he tells us to love our neighbour as yourself?

‘Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’’

Matthew 22:37-39

We know that he doesn’t mean to just love those who live in the house directly next to ours. Or just those on our road, or in our suburb, or in our city. We know that it doesn’t just mean loving those ‘neighbours’ of ours who live in the same country.

But perhaps the idea of loving those who live three thousand miles, numerous borders and an ocean away seems somewhat irrelevant. After all, I’ll never visit most places on the other side of the globe, let alone meet all the people. I don’t have contact with them, so how am I meant to love them?

Yet, in a globalised world, where the supply chains for the cup of coffee you had at breakfast, and the pair of jeans that you bought yesterday, and the laptop you’re reading this on, span the planet, we do have contact with far away people in far away places. Indirectly, we are connected to them through the zig-zagging chains that link up producers and consumers. Indirectly, our choices impact them.

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So back to that lovely dress that you are wearing, a product of one of the biggest, most global industries in the world. It’s estimated that 60 million people work in the fashion industry worldwide. One of those probably laid out the pattern pieces. Another probably sewed up the side seam. But we don’t have to see that.

We don’t see that the consumer demand for low prices forces companies to search for manufacturing locations were savings can be made. That this often leads them to set up shop in developing countries where social and environmental legislation is weak. That labour costs can be squeezed down to a minimum, below living wage. That this is often accompanied by unsafe working conditions, forced labour, child labour and lack of job security.

We don’t see how disasters are unsurprisingly common; on 24 April 2013, 1,134 people were killed and over 2,500 were injured when Rana Plaza, a textile and clothing manufacturing complex in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, collapsed.

We don’t have to see the real cost of shaving a few pounds off a price tag.

And are we called to love these people too?

Of course we are.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. It goes against the grain of the patterns of this world. But with every penny we spend, we have the chance to invest in a more just world. So let’s not ignore the role we play as consumers, and the connections we have to those our purchases impact. Let’s educate ourselves, let’s be active in choosing justice.

Let’s love our global neighbours.

Want to find out more about the fashion industry? Take a peek at these resources:

The True Cost Documentary

Naked Fashion - Safia Minney

To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?

Stitched Up - Tansy E. Hoskins

Where Am I Wearing – Kelsey Timmerman

www.ethicalconsumer.org