But by shining these lights in different places, they really have uncovered things that companies in their own interest are trying to clean up. We're not going to get rid of the realities of global competition. But these companies, like Nike or Gap, have global brands that they want to protect.
The main one is that these apparel jobs are a very important means for young women in these countries to gain autonomy. The other big lesson is that it can't be just about activism. This is most clear to me in the case of China, where we do not have freedom of the press. If the press is free and can report on what's happening, then change happens.
You need companies investing in these countries, so women have employment opportunities, and you also need these forces of conscience. Without the activists, in the United States we would still have child labor, we would still have 16-hour days.
The movement really has evolved because their initial demands [such as factory codes of conduct and disclosure of supplier names and addresses] have virtually all been met. This recent idea of factory certification is building on what they got some time ago.
If consumers weren't thinking this way, companies would be a lot less responsive. Right now, consumers don't really have a way to get information about where exactly their clothing is coming from - that's a barrier. We have labels on your eggs, "cage-free hens." They need to get something along those lines to allow the consumer to discriminate.
I have heard a lot of stories - we're putting this in for the monitors, we've got this other set of records. This is a relatively new field, but they're getting better. They're getting more resources from the companies. At some point the factories say, okay, this is here to stay.
In many poor countries, if the daughter is told who she's going to marry, and told that she's going to live in the village with her husband's family, she really has very little opportunity to make her own decisions. If she comes for a while to work in a factory, she has her own money. In family agriculture, it's never your money. It's whatever somebody decides to give you. For many people this is tremendously valuable, because then they can step up.
