Burma Campaign UK Launched Boycott Against Cotton Traders
London, UK: The Burma Campaign UK today launched a boycott campaign, calling on Cotton Traders to stop sourcing clothes from Burma. Clothing exports are an important source of income for Burma’s brutal military dictatorship, the campaign said.
Johnny Chatterton, Campaigns Officer at the Burma Campaign UK said: “Companies sourcing clothes from Burma are helping to fund a dictatorship that uses rape, torture and murder to oppress its own people. Customers of Cotton Traders will be shocked to hear they are involved with this brutal dictatorship.”
The launch came after an item labelled ‘Made In Myanmar’ was bought from the Cotton Traders 2008 Catalogue. At least two items of clothing sold by Cotton traders have got ‘Made in Myanmar’ labels, according to campaigners.
Burma Campaign said that policies not to source from Burma have been put into practice by more than 130 major high street clothing retailers including M&S, Next, ASDA, H&M, Debenhams, House of Fraser and BHS.
A factory employee could earn just £3 for working 60 hours with wages as low as 5p in Burma.
Many companies and manufacturers are interested in Burma because of its very cheap labour, ban on trade unions and lack of health and safety laws, according to Burma Campaign UK.
The Burma Campaign UK launched its first campaign against retailers sourcing from Burma in 1996 following calls from Burma’s democracy movement to stop financing the military regime. The British Government has a decade long policy of discouraging trade with Burma and has called on British companies not to operate there.
Burma has been ruled for decades by one of the most secretive and ruthless military regime that violates the most fundamental human rights, oppresses its own peoples with callous brutalities and is engaged in systematic extermination of ethnic groups.