A woman sits in a chair, with her hair draped over her face; she does not make eye contact. She wears dark clothing and a necklace featuring a snake, presumably, a reference to her alias, Serpent Libertine. This is an alternate identity she takes on as a sex worker. From her bright red lips, she speaks of the reality of the sex trade, both in Chicago and internationally. Her message is clear: choosing sex work is choosing to make a better wage. Author Anne Elizabeth Moore proves that this decision is intertwined with our own lives, down to the clothing in our closets. In Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking , Moore presents an insider’s perspective of the garment industry in connection to sex trafficking; a connection that was not even clear to Moore herself when she began her seven year journey to produce this journalistic comic. As an award-winning journalist and comic anthologist, Moore has covered a range of human rights topics as they affect marginalized groups globally. Threadbare follows the chronology of Moore’s studies of the garment industry, which led her to explore fast fashion in her former home of Chicago, as well as in Austria and in Southeast Asia, where the most detrimental effects of the industry are brought to light. In cities across Cambodia, female factory workers are employed by the thousands to produce clothing for fast fashion retailers. Undereducated and mistreated, they work for far less than a living wage. Moore’s connection to these young women, who were being forced into garment factories from a lack of opportunity, drove her to investigate the major human rights issues facing the women in Cambodia. Where initially it “wasn’t clear that there was a connection,” Moore’s time in the region made it apparent to her that the circumstances of these workers needed reform. As detailed in illustrations by The Ladydrawers (a group of comic artists who publish work on culture, gender, and economics), Moore presents the connection between the women who create garments in the factories and the women who work in the sex trade, either consensually or as trafficking victims. In recalling her conversations with these women, Moore noted that currently “it is a system that’s really out of control, and that’s what we talked about. Really seeing that specific murders, crimes, and human rights violations can literally be traced to the kinds of clothes we purchase every day.” Most of the women who work in the garment industry cannot find any other means of financial support; this creates a vicious cycle of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Moore explains that most of these workers can only afford expired food, many live in squalor, and many develop diseases they cannot treat because of the conditions they work and live in. They are forced to make daily decisions about basic survival. Having researched the legislation in place which limits wages that women earn in garment factories, Moore found that these policies are “unchangeable at this point” because “the fashion industry is creating the conditions for human trafficking.” With no legal employment alternative, many women turn to the sex trade; however, Moore discovered that this chance to earn a living wage, by whatever means, is often disrupted. NGOs, or Non-Governmental Organizations, are funded by donations to aid marginalized groups of people. These officials often “save” these groups of women who have left the garment industry in order to survive, and because there is no clear definition of trafficking, NGOs group consensual sex workers and human trafficking victims together. Despite these women making the conscious choice to participate in sex work, consensual sex workers are funneled into the same rehabilitation program as trafficking victims, where they are given new, legal work. “I walked into the anti-trafficking NGO and they’re making garments,” stated Moore. “[That’s] not doing anybody any good, it’s not actually helping anything.” In regards to this controversial stance against these charity organizations, Moore explains: “I’m critical of things like the anti-trafficking industry because I don’t believe that it’s actually supporting women”; rather, NGOs are filtering these women back into a cycle of exploitation. The nonprofit nature of these organizations leads Moore to suspect that they are being funded by donations from the corporate sector, in order to use these women for labor. They are “making garments for a quarter of the wage” than they had previously demanded, Moore explained. “It is not economically viable.”
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