Shop Like A Christian

" Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body and what you will wear. Is the body not more than clothing? And why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Will God not much more clothe you -- you of little faith?" --[ Matthew 6: 25- 30].

When my son was a little boy, he asked me why almost all of his toys said "China", on the underside?
I explained that most things sold in the United States are made, and shipped here, from China.

He asked, " Why?" I said, " In China, it is cheaper to make things. But some people say that Americans should buy more things made in the U.S., because the people who work in China are sometimes very young and they are paid very little."

He replied, " The people in China need to make money, too. But they should be paid more, if they don't have enough money to live." My son was a little choked up when he said this.

Sometimes, the wisest things are said by our children, if we take the time to listen.

I think a lot about these matters, as I am now in full Christmas shopping mode. I think about what is on my shopping list, and what stores or websites I will shop from. Increasingly, I am thinking about where the items on my shopping list are coming from?

I have had this on my mind since the recent news reports about factory conditions in Bangladesh, where so many of the clothes sold in America are made.

I recently attended a lecture given by Elizabeth Cline, author of the book, "Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion." According to Ms. Cline, the average wages in clothing factories in the United States are $10.58 per hour. In China, wages in clothing factories are $1.26 per hour. In Vietnam, wages are $0.53. In Cambodia, wages are $0.45. In Bangladesh, wages are $0.35.

Obviously, these wages are the reason why the clothes that Americans buy are made overseas.

But, in a word, why should we care?

Remember the factory collapse in Bangladesh in April, 2013? A young woman named Mahinur Akhter was trapped in the rubble for over 8 hours. Her ordeal made international headlines.

Mahinur was 15 or 16 at the time. She has no birth certificate, so she is not even sure of how old she is.

An article in The Wall Street Journal, on June 22, 2103, detailed her plight:  She was able to easily obtain working papers claiming that she is 20 years old. She works for $90- $100 per month. She works from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., but when there is a big deadline, she works until 3:00 a.m. or even 6:00 a.m., but is then required to be back at work by 8:00 a.m. She is required to finish a piece every 30 seconds. Workers are subject to verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and physical abuse for mistakes or failure to meet quota.

The day before the factory collapse, workers heard the walls cracking. The next day, workers were threatened with a penalty of a month's salary, if they did not re-enter the factory.

Most of what Mahinur makes goes to pay for her two brothers' school tuition. She is quoted in the Wall Street Journal article as saying, "People my age should be in school."

And so we ask, what about inspecting these factories, to be sure that they are clean and safe? An article in The New York Times dated September 2, 2103 reports that oftentimes, the factory that is made available for inspection is a perfect, model factory. The piles of new clothing there are actually made in substandard factories, elsewhere.

Then, we ask, what about limiting the workers' hours? A Wall Street Journal article dated September 20, 2013 reports that some factory owners keep two sets of books so that excessive labor cannot be detected.

Dear readers, Mahinur could be my daughter, my niece. She could be your sister or cousin. We are ALL the adopted children of Christ. "If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; [but] if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy." [1 Corinthians 12: 26].

I cannot, in good conscience, buy clothes from Bangladesh, without thinking of Mahinur and her co-workers, laboring in slave-like conditions. Is a fashionista's drive to have 15 cheap T-shirts, in every single color they make, really worth the life of a young girl like Mahinur?

Elizabeth Cline, at her lecture, asked her audience to become more aware of where our clothes come from. She also asked that we simply buy less. Or, buy clothes from American factories, where we are more sure of working standards.

And she challenged us to stop thinking of clothes as disposable items. "In the old days," she said, "we used to mend clothes."

The story of Mahinur reminds me of the stories in the documentary "Girl Rising". We can watch that powerful film, we can applaud, we can even advocate education for girls, or donate a few dollars to the cause.

But in the end, what are we really DOING to help the situation of girls like Minuhar?

I like what Elizabeth Cline said at the end of her lecture. She said that, from traveling and researching for her book, she learned something. She learned "the power of individuals to change institutions."  

The only way I could say that better is to say, Let us learn of our own collective power to change our brothers' and sisters' lives around the world.

Shop like a Christian.

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2013. All Rights Reserved.