Despite years of campaigning and some notable successes conditions in garment factories are all too often degrading and not enough to live on. In mid-2002, Wang, aged 33, from a village in South China went to work in a shoe factory to save the money to buy a house. Working 17 hours a day the toxins in the glue used to make the shoes slowly destroyed her nervous system, forcing her to quit work leaving her family in debt and destitution. In Morocco workers producing clothes for the European consumer sometimes in illegal factories where deductions from their already poor pay are made for taking too long a break or laughing too loudly.

In the second half of the nineties high profile companies from the garment industry such as GAP and Nike began to sell off their 'burdensome' factories to focus on selling us their highly profitable brand names. Instead they contracted out the stitching of their clothes and shoes enabling them to play off competing companies around the world to get the very cheapest price. Governments across the developing world, desperate for foreign investment create special areas which don't have strict employment laws. This 'race to the bottom' leaves workers with little pay and no protection from forced overtime, ill health or summary sacking.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) dominated by the richer countries including the EU, exacerbates the situation by forcing governments often through threats to deregulate their markets in the name of 'liberalisation'. WTO Tribunals can over-ride national laws when they conflict with WTO policy. The fear is that this will result in elected governments being unable to protect their people.

SPEAK, alongside other charities such as Oxfam and Christian Aid are campaigning for a reformed WTO with a new rules based-trading system which has poverty reduction at its core and that will hold multinationals to account in a legally binding framework. The 'Big dress' is a fantastic creative way to show decision-makers in the UK and across the world our concerns and help to create fairer trade rules that will give dignity back to people in countries such China and Morocco.

Case studies from Labour Behind the Label, November 2002