When looking into ethical choice concerning industry, I wanted to obtain some primary research from someone with first-hand experience. I asked Fashion Designer, Francesca Gasporini, what it is like to work for a large corporation within an industry often associated with making their products through unethical means. This is what she had to say about the matter,
“Factories can be very evasive in how they present themselves to external visitors, what you see is not always what you get. From my own experience of visiting these factories in locations such as Italy and Portugal I have found that workers often have to hide certain conditions or aspects of the factory from paying clients; so it wouldn’t surprise me if factories such as these have young children working for them. However there are other aspects to think about in the situation, such as some children are the only members of their family's able to work, therefore the family's only source of income comes from this child. I am not supporting illegal child labour, however China has a completely different set of values from the United Kingdom; at one time it was socially accepted for children to work in similar factories in this country. I have worked for many prestigious fashion brands who spend more money on their factories, which makes it less likely that they have children on their staff. Where I work at the moment, the company owns their own factory, meaning if they did have children illegally working for them, the company itself would get in trouble. If I knew I was working for a company that hired young children as labourers, I don’t think I would feel comfortable working there. I would never apply for a job with a company I knew used child labourers to construct their designs.”
It is interesting to get a different, and first hand perspective of an individual who has experienced what it is genuinely like in places of ethical ambivalence, these places make you question what is right and wrong in this industry. However I also found it really interesting that Gasporini mentions the workers from a different perspective, not as a child labourer, but as a family member putting food on the table; what if this child isn’t being forced to work, what if they are working to provide for their family?
