Wear And Tear Series: The Women Who Make Our Clothes

The Across Women’s Lives, “Wear and Tear” series follows the women who make our clothes in the $3 trillion global garment industry. From the textile mills in North Carolina, where Acree Bell Lassiter worked her whole life to gain economic independence; to El Monte, California, where Rotchana Sussman was held against her will, working 18-hour days, until authorities raided the sweatshop; and then to Bangladesh, where the memory of the Rana Plaza collapse of April 2013 is fresh for women like Arati Baladas, who lost her mother and her foot in the collapse that she was buried under for 3 days. This piece explores the hidden impacts of the fast fashion export agenda on poor, rural and migrant young women working in the garment industry, who are exposed to hazardous and toxic conditions impacting both their lives, and the Earth. Photo credit: Ismael Ferdous/PRI