Stand up for Fairtrade

I DON’T want to scoff at people just because it isn’t my thing, but most of those pictured shopping for clothes and shoes with the reopening of non-essential shops didn’t give the impression they really needed to, or were wearing their total wardrobe.

I guess most people shopping will have been appalled by the continuing violence inflicted on black people and be waking up to the issues that have beset them for centuries. But how many of us really translate our voiced concerns into action that shows we believe Black Lives Matter?

The worldwide lockdown has hit us all, but some more than others. Among those worst hit are the sweatshop workers in Bangladesh and other countries, that produce the cheap fashion people were queueing up for.

Faced with no sales big stores immediately cancelled orders, told manufacturers they were not going to pay them as expected, and unilaterally demanded concessions. The knock-on of this is that poor people with insecure work once more have been hit.

And these are often single working women with no social security safety net. If they don’t bring home a wage children go hungry.

I don’t want them to lose their income, but we have to ask ourselves what it says about us if we continue to acquiesce to this oppression and exploitation.

Consumers can bring this point home to shops very easily by asking for their position on protecting workers in their supply chain.

Surely all Black Lives Matter, including those who work indirectly for us overseas out of our sight? Lancashire cotton operatives thought so 160 years ago and were prepared to make sacrifices in the name of common decency and humanity – are we in our time prepared to demand Fairtrade rather than exploitation?

After all, Manchester is a Fairtrade city.

M Allott, Longview