There are a couple of reasons why mass farmer suicides have not generated the international attention that should ostensibly accompany such a phenomenon. For one thing, the image of desperate peasants killing themselves by the hundreds of thousands does not mesh particularly well with the portrait of India fabricated by free market pundits, who hallucinate rampant upward economic mobility among the country’s citizens thanks to globalisation.
“The humanisation campaign consists not only of conveying the personal stories of Indian farming families but also pinpointing the direct link between those of us who buy certain clothes and those of us who perish in the clothes-making process.”
According to filmmaker Leah Borromeo, director of the forthcoming Dirty White Gold about cotton and fashion, the dearth of international concern over the issue is also a result of the fact that “people haven’t made the connection between our consumer habits and the lives and deaths of farmers”.
The objective of the film, which shines a light on the entire cotton supply chain, is to help force legislation that will “make ethics and sustainability the norm in the fashion industry”. (Belén Fernández) More here.