Indian Madness, Sweatshop Fashion

                                              People

Ralph Samuel, from Mumbai, plans to sue his parents for creating him without his consent.

Cornfield with Figures, John MacWhirter (1839-1911)

Photo Credit: Sandwell Museums Service Collection [CC BY-NC-SA] 

“People should understand that they do not owe their parents anything, and that we should be maintained by them for the rest of our lives. They should pay us to live with them, and that’s why I am taking my parents to court, to sue them for giving birth to me.”

His mother, Kavita Karnad Samuel responded that, “I must admire my son's temerity in wanting to take his parents to court, especially knowing that we are both lawyers. If I had met my son beforehand, I confess that I would not have given birth to him. But if he can offer a rational explanation as to how we could have obtained his consent to be born, then I will accept my fault.”

Raphael insisted that his legal case was not a prank…“If this case makes one couple think seriously about whether or not to have children it will have been a success.”

(Private Eye)


Fashion and Sweatshops

Washerwomen on the Banks of the River Touques, Eugene Louis Boudin (1824-1898)

Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

She, (Livia Firth) talks about how the fashion industry produces 100 billion items a year and three fifths end up in landfill within 12 months. Fashion, I say, relentlessly pushes purchases. Is capitalism the problem? Livia says, “It is,” at exactly the same time that Nico (her brother) says: “No, it’s not.” We laugh.

…This year she went on Instagram to shame Comic Relief when it was revealed that its T-shirts were unwittingly sourced from a sweatshop in Bangladesh.

… “With Comic Relief it’s a different conversation. We’ve been talking to them for so long, so many years about doing that part of the job, and it’s never been done. And then at some point you think, ‘You know what? I told you so, and you are stupid. Why didn’t you do [the research into ethical clothing]? Because you think that no one would ever discover it, or is it a part of the job you didn’t need to do because you are too important for that?’ Brands cannot get away with it anymore.”

(The Times, 2019)

If this woman has been talking to Comic Relief for years about the problem how can it be reported that the T-shirts were “unwittingly sourced from a sweatshop in Bangladesh”?