Christian Lacroix for EJF: organic cotton charity t-shirt

Christian Lacroix has backed the Environmental Justice Foundation’s (EJF) Pick Your Cotton Carefully campaign, designing a t-shirt to raise awareness of the use of forced child labour and the ecological devastation associated with cotton production.

“Using the simplest piece of clothing, but also the most universal, the t-shirt is certainly the most efficient way of publicising the plight of these children”

Juliette Williams Programme Director, EJF, says: “Even in tough economic times, our buying power can be a force for good. Choosing organic and fairly traded cotton actively supports communities in some of the world’s poorest nations, where fair and equitable trade to the west can literally mean the difference between life and death. With public support, companies have been inspired to look at the way the cotton they buy and sell is produced, and high street names are saying ‘no’ to cotton from Uzbekistan until child labour and environmental abuses are eradicated. Together we can change our world”.

Around the world, whether it is state enforced, or child trafficking, millions of children face severe exploitation in the cotton industry. In Uzbekistan, the world’s 3rd largest exporter of cotton, roughly a third of the population are forced to work in conditions near slavery for the state run cotton industry. Many are children. Schools across the country are shut down for the cotton harvest as children from the age of 7 are sent to work for weeks in the fields, paid little or nothing, but benefiting their repressive government through this forced labour.

Caroline Trentini and Alison Nix in Christian Lacroix organic cotton charity t-shirt
Photos by Eric Guillemain

Margaryta Senchylo and Catherine McNeil in Christian Lacroix organic cotton charity t-shirt
Photos by Eric Guillemain