With our Solidarity Fund, we are empowering workers in India and Bangladesh in their struggle for fair working conditions. For this purpose, we work with selected organizations such as NGWF, Munnade and CIVIDEP, which support the workers through legal assistance in labour law issues, organization of protests, campaigns and demonstrations as well as training and consultations. Two recent examples from our Indian partner organisation Munnade show how important this work is.

Read the stories of Bhagya and Thayamma and donate to the Solifonds!

Munnade employees on a mission.
Photo: © FEMNET

Human rights over profit

FEMNET e.V. supports the CorA petition "Human Rights before Profit", which calls on the German government to oblige companies to respect human rights also in foreign business. Over 14,000 people have demanded binding human rights due diligence obligations for German companies abroad in letters to Chancellor Merkel in recent weeks. They arrived at the crucial stage of the deliberations on the National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights (NAP), which the Federal Government established after an almost two-year dialogue process with representatives from business, trade unions and civil society.

More information...

Photo: © Jörg Böthling

New employee strengthens civil society in the textile alliance

Since mid-June, Tim Zahn has been strengthening the campaign for clean clothing as coordinator for civil society actors in the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles. The position is coordinated by FEMNET. The task of the coordinator is to bring in the demands of the NGOs in the Textile Alliance and thus strengthen our position vis-à-vis politics and business.

A challenging challenge, among other things, because the majority of all working groups of the Textile Alliance are composed of representatives of the economy. At the moment, the Alliance is in a crucial phase: By the end of the year, all members, including FEMNET as an association, should develop their so-called roadmaps with company-specific goals, e.g. for the implementation of trade union freedom and living wages. We are committed to ensuring that these "roadmaps" contain ambitious goals.

Tim Zahn

Signature campaign on living wages

The "Get changed - Fair Fashion Network" has launched a signature campaign on fair living wages in cooperation with FEMNET. Signatures are collected online and with postcards.

The focus is on the following two Requirements for fashion companies:

1. Workers in fashion production must earn living wages!
2. Fashion companies should report transparently on the payment of wages in the supply chain!

Sign online now...

FairSchnitt: Start of the registration phase for the conference
‘FAIR FASHION works? Corporate responsibility in fashion studies’

On 13 and 14 October 2016, the 3rd edition will take place. FairSchnitt conference for students and lecturers from the textile and fashion sector held in Düsseldorf. On two days, lectures, discussions and workshops provide information on current developments in the industry and opportunities for exchange.

This time, let's look at what's behind terms like CSR and corporate responsibility: Where does the discussion about corporate social responsibility come from? What do companies understand by this? How can German politics influence global developments and has the topic already found its way into the curricula of fashion-related courses of study?

Students and university lecturers can Register via our website.

Photo: © FEMNET

FairSchnitt: Twelve workshops at seven universities in the first half of 2016

In the first half of 2016, FairSchnitt multipliers already gave twelve workshops at seven different universities. Some were one-day, the longest being four days. As new locations, we were able to win the Reutlingen University of Applied Sciences and the Burg Giebichenstein Art School in Halle an der Saale. We implemented a particularly large number of workshops at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Mönchengladbach, with which there have been good contacts for years. Our intern Daniela Reuter took part in one of the workshops on ‘Existing wages and working conditions in (Eastern) Europe and Turkey’ and wrote a contribution worth reading about it.

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Fair public procurement: With quizzes and fair balls on Bonn's Münsterplatz

On Saturday, 18 June 2016, the Day of Sport took place on Münsterplatz in Bonn, organised by the Stadtsportbund Bonn e.V. in cooperation with the Bonn sports clubs. With an information booth of the project Fair Public Procurement, which has been carried out since 2015 in cooperation with the city of Bonn, FEMNET showed that human rights are also violated in the production of balls and sportswear in countries such as Pakistan or Cambodia.

The visitors were particularly surprised that fair footballs and handballs are hardly more expensive than non-fairly manufactured balls. Bonn schools are therefore encouraged to buy fair balls. In the future, Stadt will also be advising on the purchase of fair service clothing for lifeguards and the sports facility maintenance service.

Read more news from the project

News from our partners

Bangladesh: Workers claim labour rights and better pay under the leadership of NGWF

Owners and management of the Karnafuli Knitwear Limited factory have signed an agreement that grants workers of the factory extensive rights such as fairer pay and the right to maternity protection (around 450 of the 700 affected are women). This success was achieved by the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) together with the approximately 700 affected workers. NGWF is an association of Bangladeshi garment workers and has been working with FEMNET for years.

More news from Bangladesh...

NGWF trade unionists at a demonstration in June 2016.
Photo: © NGWF

06.07.2016: Bangalore, India: One in seven textile workers experiences sexual violence in the workplace

FEMNET partner organisation Munnade publishes shocking report

About 500,000 people work in Bangalore's apparel industry, about two-thirds of whom are women. Many of the approximately 1,200 factories also produce for multinational companies. The fact that working conditions there are usually very poor and labour rights are often ignored has meanwhile also arrived in the countries of Europe for which a large part of the clothing is produced.

However, the June 2016 report by our partner organisation Munnade, in collaboration with the British NGO Sisters for Change, shows for the first time the whole catastrophic extent of the abuse.

More news from India...

News from the association

Joint commitment to women's rights inthe Textile industry:
FEMNET e.V. and Bonn Sustainability Portal conclude annual partnership

On June 1, 2016, FEMNET e.V. and the Bonn Sustainability Portal started their annual partnership. In this way, the portal will actively support our organization in communicating our topics over the next twelve months. The editorial team of the Bonn Sustainability Portal on the partnership: "We look forward to bringing the annual partnership to life and showcasing FEMNET's great commitment to a wider audience."

The FEMNET Executive Board is also looking forward to the cooperation with the portal and is looking forward to the exchange with network partners. There was already a first meeting: On June 3, FEMNET presented itself at an editorial meeting of the portal. BSP and FEMNET also worked together as part of the first sustainability camp in Bonn, carried out by the network partner Engagement Global.

More information...