Fashion industry is world’s 2nd largest polluter behind the oil industry and world’s 2nd in people being enslaved after sex industry:
- 46,8m modern slaves today; 80% gets re-trafficked due to financial vulnerability
- 21mil people are trapped in forced labour mainly women and children mostly in the fashion industry.
- Rana Plaza (April 24, 2013)
- Collapse of factory in Bangladesh (causing death and injury to thousands of fashion workers).
- More than 1 million refugees
- Prolonged economic recession
- 1 out of 2 young people being unemployed and more than 1 out of 4 adults
- Production has fled Europe
21 million people are victims of forced labor around the world, of which 11,4 million are female. According to the Ethical Trading Initiative, 71% of fashion companies indicate there is a ‘likelihood of modern slavery occurring at some stage of their supply chain.’ This is a $30 billion industry, fueled by a lack of transparency in unregulated production and illegal work practices. Slavery in the fashion world can appear in a variety of forms from harvesting the cotton for a t-shirt, spinning the fiber to yarn, sewing the garment and modelling the final product. The difference between slavery and extremely exploitative labor can be vague and the fashion industry walks a fine line.
The biggest group in risk of being trafficking is refugees; from 01/2015- 03/2016 there are 1,003,184 arrivals of refugees in Greece this created an explosive situation in an already burdened society and economy with unemployment over 25% and youth unemployment over 50%.
On the 24th of April 2013, 1,134 were killed and more than 2,500 were injured when the fashion factory Rana Plaza in Dhaka Bangladesh collapsed. Its a lot of lives to be lost in one day don’t you think? This is how the Fashion Revolution movement was born active in 95 countries today. We are part of the Founding Board of Fashion Revolution Greece (link?)
Fashion production has fled Europe, there is lack of sustainable production going hand in hand with limited awareness ‘who made my clothes’; a gradual extinction of traditional technical professions; and barriers to entry to new designers: which remain artisans with no access to production workshops; with limited potential to scale up.
Around the Fashion Revolution movement a group of like-minded talented professionals were gathered under their common vision to ‘break the chain’ in the fashion industry. And thus SOFFA was born as a social cooperative of fashion designers and professionals establishing a holistic model that would remedy all atrocities caused by Fashion creating value to all stakeholders involved.