The Poisoned Apple- Blood, Silk and Chocolate

In reading the first part of this title, you might have been struck with the question: why 'the Poisoned Apple'? This is the perfect metaphor for the great majority of the fashion industry as we know it. Imagine the most beautiful candy apple you have ever seen: all glistening, having just emerged from a glossy, fire-engine red ocean of liquid candy, looking as though all that's missing are your teeth sinking into one crisp-sounding, sweet and sour bite. Go ahead. Take that bite. But instead of that joyous flavour of rainbows and beautiful fall days, you are unpleasantly surprised by a bitter taste, not unlike missing a step on the stair. You feel as though you've been cheated: the promisingly glossy exterior hid an unpleasantly mushy and tasteless flesh, and even the toothaching sugariness can't hide the fact that under its sleek shell, it is rotten to the core.
Walk in any mall near you: slip into your favorite stores. Hear the rustle of silk as your fingers glide across that liquid moonlight, don a fluorescent-paint splattered punk t-shirt, twirl around a few times in front of the mirror in a Jane Austen-inspired sundress, or whatever else grabs your fancy. Would it surprise you, shock you even, if your most coveted clothing article, that most perfect, faultless item, was made by an exploited and malnourished child, living in the most desolate of surroundings and environments, who faces daily the possibility of being  whipped for stopping even a moment to catch their breath? Has this thought even crossed your mind?
The title of this article incorporates three important elements in the modern use of slavery in industry: firstly, Blood - the kind of hardships that these modern slaves undergo that we cannot allow to continue-, Silk - the use of slavery in the fashion industry-, and Chocolate, one of the more notable examples that must be mentioned, which has a very long history of cruelty. 
People all over the globe are desperate for money to survive, to protect their families, and are unaware of the rights they retain. Unfortunately, they often become the prey of sweatshops and plantations, that promise the possibility of earning that much sought after money, tantalizingly offer dreams of freedom and being one's own master, even agreeing to provide food and lodging, when they then reveal their true colours, forcing the newly drafted employees to (depending on the domain of work) slave away in the fields, brave the arduous and unceasing work and the elements  or operate and repair (to great danger to themselves) dangerous machinery in factories, for hours on end, with no breaks, and with only a meagre and insufficient meal in their stomachs. Illness does not excuse you, neither does injury: resting or stopping for a moment can and will cost you physical punishment. There is no one to pick you up after you have fallen. Workers drop dead in the fields, the hardships having been too much. There is no breaking the pact you have made: all you can do is hope for a miracle. 
Thousands of adults and children are being employed in sweatshops all over the world. The exact number is unknown as the transactions are illegal, and therefore statistics that are any more than approximative are not possible. Who works in sweatshops? As mentioned before, there are people looking to make a better life for their family, people who have no other choice, and, the most heartbreaking of workers, children. Many are kidnapped, some are tempted away by the opportunity of helping their family; this tactic is very effective in certain African countries, where there is always a  distant relative who can offer to procure a job and accompany their young niece or nephew on the journey to their workplace; others are enticed by dreams of luxuries that are ordinary to a North American child, but are rarities in third world countries. More heartbreaking still, some parents put their sons or daughters there to obtain money to raise the rest of the children. 
Who employs this kind of brute force to manufacture their products? Surely not our North American chains. The answer is: yes, our brandnames, the most trusted, established here long ago. If the item you buy is not explicitly marked fair-trade, and comes from a third-world country, there is a very good chance that it employs slave labour. Don't be convinced by the fact that they sponsor good causes: an excellent example would be Gap. It has its 'Do the RED thing' campaign, and yet it was discovered that a line of shirts of theirs were embroidered in a sweatshop employing children in India! This is the stark reality for many companies, more than we care to hear.    
However, this isn't the end of the road: there is a new generation of shoppers who are realizing the importance of their choices, just as there is a new wave in couture, one that has high hopes and expectations of cleansing and redeeming the ethics of fashion. This movement is starting in the smaller fashion houses, that want to clean this act up and make clothing articles that are beautiful, comfortable, and care about the people who made them and the environment, and it'll slowly but surely work its way up to the  bigger companies. Princess Ta-dam is proud to be a part of the fair-trade movement. 

The Rose