Campaigning Against Slave Labour…Whilst Wearing a $10 Jilbab
Campaigning Against Slave Labour…Whilst Wearing a $10 Jilbab
My Father’s definition of a bargain: when you purchased something, that you would have paid more for.
I’m as enthusiastic a bargain hunter as the next person and one of my favourite shopping scenarios is getting to the checkout to find that the sale price has been further reduced. However, at the same time, I do prefer to pay what goods are worth as I see the consequences of not doing so. I might be happy to pick up a bargain at Holt Renfrew for example, but I won’t bargain with the Islamic book seller who is trying to make a halal living for himself and his family.
One has to wonder, when shopping at stores like Wall-mart, or paying next to nothing for good quality merchandise, just who, or what, is being exploited in order to have enabled those rock bottom prices? How is it that one is able to buy a hand embroided jilbab for $10, and expect that all the people who worked to make that final sale possible, were paid a fair wage and nothing of God’s creation was abused in the process?
Every Muslim I know would declare in no uncertain terms that they are against modern day slave labour, sweat shops, animal cruelty, and abuse of our Earth. So why are we still demanding the prices that makes these things inevitable and actually encourages these practices?
Let’s take the example of a $10 cotton Jilbab:
Someone had to grow and pick the cotton
Someone had to produce the fabric from the raw material and dye it
Someone had to design the pattern
Someone had to cut, sew and embroider it
Someone had to manage and maintain the place where it was made, and make it an environment that is pleasant for the workers
Someone had to bring it to the place where you bought it
Someone had to run and maintain the place where you bought it
They probably had to pay some taxes on the sale
You do the math. It’s clearly unlikely that the person who cut and sewed your pretty jilbab took home more than 50c from that sale.
In Canada seamstresses are paid around $16 an hour, it takes them around two to three hours to cut, sew and finish an average quality jilbab well. If you pay $10 for that jilbab, who is making up that huge gap? Is there not likely to be a sweat shop operating somewhere making that possible?
Another commodity often discussed is meat. I try to buy my meat from a shop called Blossom Pure in Mississauga (suburb of Toronto). It’s organic, the owner sees the animals being reared and is confident that they are well treated and fed. The meat costs more, but how realistic do we really think if is that a $3.50 chicken was well treated and fed, and the people working on that farm were paid a fair wage and worked in comfortable conditions? The meat from Blossom Pure tastes a whole lot better than anywhere else, and I believe that there is more blessing in it, God willing.
Of course, we’ve all heard of people who say they cannot afford meat that’s twice the price, and we’ve all heard the scholar’s responses: eat half the amount. I don’t think there is anything for me to add to this statement of pure logic.
This does not mean that we should think twice about buying things that are on clearance though; retailers do this when they have over-bought on a particular item, and it can actually be more costly for them to have the items taking up valuable shelf space, than to cut their losses and move it fast. So in a way, you can be doing them a favour by helping them clear their excess stock.
Rather, it’s when the price we demand is always thoughtlessly low that can be problematic, as retailers feel pressured into cutting more and more of their costs (and often, corners) in order to keep your custom. Large retailers with a lot of buying power are notorious for “squeezing” suppliers, in order to offer increasingly competitive prices to the end consumer, whilst turning larger and larger profits themselves. Companies that are bought by private equity firms are known for this in particular. I once worked for a company who sold a large order to a big retailer, at a loss by the time the “entry fee” had been paid, just to get the product in. It was revealed later, in the fine print, that they never actually agreed to give us any shelf space, but that they would store the item as what is known as a drawer line, literally keep it in the drawer behind the counter and only bring it out when asked for it.
As Muslims, we really ought to be at the forefront of moving towards putting an end to the exploitation of people and our Earth. But sadly, instead, we have become known for being being the opposite of what we should be, being never prepared to pay the fair price for things, and always looking for discounts everywhere we go.
However, none of us have unlimited budgets, so we ask ourselves, if we cut down the bargaining and requesting discounts, how will we afford to maintain our current standard of living? Well, with many items, it’s the same idea as with the meat; do we really need twenty different jalabeeb and forty head scarves? Probably not. If we believe so, then maybe that’s why we also believe we should never be paying more than $10 for them, because our purse does not allow us to.
All of us like nice things, and it is a challenge for us women to restrain ourselves sometimes when it comes to beautiful clothing and jewelry especially. But what right do we have, to constantly look to fulfil our never ending desire for material things, at the expense of others? How grateful is it to believe it is our right to have as many things are we wish, and always at a price we can afford? Muslims are constantly taught patience and thankfulness in the Qur’an and words of our Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace), and have been given constant, daily, weekly, annual, and once in a life time practices that train us in attaining such virtues.
Most of my friends who saw me during the spring more than likely saw me in one of two clothing items: my brown dress or my black and plum dress. I recently did a spring clean of my wardrobe and I’m too embarrassed to admit how many clothes I have that I almost never wear. That, and a few other things led me to write this post, so it’s for my own benefit as much as anyone else’s. With Ramadan approaching, God willing, now is the ideal time to assess ourselves and our practices and to keep control of our worldly desires.
