NEWSSOUTH ASIA

The Situation
Sandblasting, which gives jeans a 'worn' or used look, is known to kill workers in garments producing countries like Turkey and Bangladesh where jeans sandblasting is done manually.

When workers fire sand under high pressure at jeans, dust then enters the environment, exposing workers to silica, which causes silicosis in the lungs. Eventually, workers die because they cannot breathe properly anymore.

The Solution
Versace needs to follow in the footsteps of other brands including Levi's, H&M, C&A and Gucci and publicly ban sandblasting from their supply chain.

Three years ago a Thai activist named Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul did something which would change her life forever: she made a speech. Three speeches, in fact.

On January 18, June 7 and June 13, 2008, Daranee stood up at rallies run by the Redshirts United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) and spoke out against government repression.

Daranee, known as "Da Torpedo" for her hard-hitting speeches at political protests, was arrested and tried behind closed doors for insulting the monarchy. Da Torpedo was sentenced to 18 years in prison on August 28, 2009.

We have good news: an appeals court has overturned Da Torpedo's sentencing, and forwarded her case to Thailand's Constitutional Court to rule on whether the prosecution's request to try Da Torpedo behind closed doors was constitutional.

As the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day nears,  Afghan women remain among the most discriminated against and brutalized women in the world.

This year, more than ever, they need our support.

Afghanistan is currently undergoing peace negotiations that will determine the future of the country - negotiations which Afghan women are excluded from fully participating in.

On March 8, 2011,  people will join together on bridges all over the world to celebrate International Women's Day and show solidarity with the women of Afghanistan. The goal is to make a public statement that strong women build bridges of peace.

In mid-December, more than two dozen people, most of them poor women making luxury clothes for Americans, either burned, fell or suffocated to death when a preventable preventable fire broke out in an unsafe, multi-story clothing sweatshop in Bangladesh. Several dozen more suffered severe burns.

We weren't about to sit back and let such an easily preventable tragedy in a slave-like sweatshop producing luxury cloths for American companies go unanswered.

Today, six weeks after the fire, we are pleased to announce that after 65,000 Change.org members from more than 70 countries called on all international companies sourcing from factory to take responsibility, every last one of them have finally pledged to do the right thing.

Yesterday we wrote that two companies - Target (TGT) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) - have refused to compensate the families of 28 workers killed in a fire while making their clothes.

Last night Kay Schultz, a senior group manager at Target, called Change.org. In good faith, we are printing the transcript of that conversation without any commentary. You can follow the Bangladesh fires campaign on Facebook.

Change.org: What is Target's response to this fire?

Target: Target takes this very seriously. We have joined with all the other brands sourcing from the factory [where the fire took place] and I just spent hours speaking with all of them. We've been working with our vendors and we anticipate a collective response soon. We are tightening our standards for fire safety in Bangladesh along with the other brands, and we are trying to come together as a group.

Change.org: Why has it taken so long to respond?

Target: None of us like what happened here, but the hard part is that the timing for the demands we've been asked to meet is not realistic. Arranging these kinds of changes does take more time than some people would like.

The fire took place on December 9. Immediately after, everyone was doing their own investigations. Then you had the year end and everyone was off. Today I spent the better half of my day on conference calls figuring out what we're going to do.

I am calling because I want to understand what we have to do to get our brand off the Change.org petition. I am hoping you can tell me what we need to do and we will try to do it.

65,000 people from more than 70 countries call on American corporations with annual profits in the tens of billions to give a minuscule percentage of that to compensate workers killed or injured while making their clothing.

Sound reasonable?

Apparently, for Target and Abercrombie & Fitch, the answer is no.

To illustrate just how ridiculous these two companies' response has been, let's review this case in very simple terms:

Last month, 28 workers making clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch and Target were killed in a massive, preventable blaze at an unsafe clothing sweatshop in Bangladesh. Some were burned to death, some suffocated to death, some jumped to their death, and hundreds were seriously injured.

Seven multinational companies sourced from the factory where the fire took place: Abercrombie & Fitch, Target, JC Penney, Carters Inc (owner of the brand Osh Kosh B'Gosh), the VF Corporation (owners of The North Face and Wrangler and Lee jeans), the Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation (owners of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger) and GAP Inc (owner of the brands GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy).

Since then Bangladeshi labor rights groups and their international allies have called on all seven companies to take responsibility for the fire, compensate the workers or their families, and institute a system of fire safety inspections. More than 65,000 people from some 70 countries have joined in, making this the third most popular Change.org action of all time!

Five of the seven companies have responded by taking steps to do the right thing, and a consortium of international labor rights groups are working overtime to hold them to their promises.

But apparently Target and Abercrombie & Fitch see things quite differently. To date, their only response has to been to claim they are "reviewing options for financial contributions" and suggest a "training program" for workers "to reduce the risk of recurrence."

Come again?

We did it again, folks!

Indian consumers have long been inundated with ads that use prominent Bollywood actors to promote skin-lightening products. But the Indian edition of Elle Magazine, a 'classy' global publication which one would hope has higher standards, brought in the new year by further enforcing the racial color hierarchy with a white-washed Bollywood actress on the January 2011 cover.

Tens of thousands of Change.org members have told Elle publishers, art directors and editors exactly what we think about the whitening of former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and this weekend the 50,000th person joined the campaign!

One month ago today, 28 workers were burned to death and hundreds more injured at a tragic fire in an unsafe, multi-story clothing factory just north the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka. With a number of the exits locked by management, some workers were burned to death, some trampled to death, some killed by suffocation and others jumped from the flames to their death. Several dozen more suffered severe burns.

Owned by the Ha-Meem Group, the "That's It Sportswear" factory supplies cloths to numerous prominent US clothing brands and retailers, including Abercrombie & Fitch; Target; JC Penney; Carters Inc., the leading US children's clothing retailer and owner of the brand Osh Kosh B'Gosh (pictured); the VF Corporation, a "$7 billion-plus apparel powerhouse" which owns Wrangler and Lee jeans, Jansport, North Face and Vans; the Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, which owns Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and other brands; and GAP Inc, the leading US clothing retailer and owner of the brands GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy. The Ha-Meem group also sells to H&M, Walmart, Kohl's, Sears, Next and many more brands.

We weren't about to sit back and let such an easily preventable tragedy in a slave-like sweatshop producing luxury cloths for American companies go unanswered.

Change.org members sprung into action, and more than 25,000 of us from 71 countries called on all international companies sourcing from the "That's It Sportswear" factory to provide just compensation to the victims and their families and launch thorough, independent, well funded and publicly transparent safety inspections of all multi-story supplier factories in Bangladesh in the supply chain of each brand and retailer.

It hasn't been easy. As Change.org members piled on the pressure, groups like the International Labor Rights Forum, the Maquila Solidarity Network, United Students Against Sweatshops, the Clean Cloths Campaign and the Workers Rights Corsortium have taken the lead in negotiating with the clothing companies to get concrete commitments.

One month after the tragedy, we are pleased to announce that the GAP, to the company's credit, has responded to the concerns of Change.org members, consumers and labor rights groups by agreeing to just compensation and an urgent program of factory inspections. If Gap follows through on these pledges (and we will be following this closely!) and if other brands follow suit, it will mean justice for the victims of this preventable tragedy and a vigorous and transparent program to ensure that no more apparel workers in Bangladesh die as a result of their employers' negligence.

YES!

Thousands of AIDS patients across the developing world could lose access to affordable antiretrovirals if one specific clause makes its way into a pending trade agreement between India and the EU.

Let’s help make sure that doesn’t happen.

Cheap, generic antiretrovirals have been critical in prolonging the lives of HIV/AIDS patients in resource-poor settings. Such generic meds make up 80 percent of the drugs distributed by organizations like Doctors Without Borders across communities that are not able to afford the full-priced alternative. Even the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief incorporates generics into its programs.

India is the world’s leading producer of generics. But if the “data exclusivity” passage, seen in a leaked draft obtained by the Associated Press, makes its way into the final version of a pending trade agreement between India and the EU, it could stymie India’s generic pharmaceutical industry, especially in the development of new medicines coming online. The result could be a return to the days when patients had to choose between full price meds or no meds at all.

It looks like Elle Magazine had quite the white Christmas.

Recently in the news for lightening the skin of Gabourey Sidibe on the September cover, the magazine has done it again, featuring prominent Bollywood actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on the January 2011 cover looking far paler than she is in real life.

I had to do a double take when I first saw the cover page. Not only does Ms. Rai-Bachchan look far whiter than she is in real life, she also looks like a red-head. Aishwarya is reportedly in shock and plans to sue the magazine if the allegations are true.

There are those who would defend the magazine for using some kind of lighting or a Photoshop trick, or who think that this is no big deal and skin lightening is similar to tanning.

To put this into context: Indian consumers have long been inundated with ads that use prominent Bollywood actors to promote skin-lightening products. In a country that produces gorgeous women of color, it is sad that Ms. Rai-Bachchan, who is relatively light-skinned, is one of the very few with some cross-over international appeal. To see magazines like Elle further enforce the color hierarchy by making Aishwarya appear lighter-skinned is a slap in the face to thousands of young Indian women who aspire to be models and actors. It also plays into systemic racism when Indian women across the world pick up a copy of Elle Magazine and can barely recognize one of their own celebrities due to the fact that her skin tone was digitally lightened.