Child Fashion Labor

Photographer Claudio Montesano Casillas spent last year documenting the 3,500 (ish) "informal" factories in Bangladesh, where around a million children work.

Such as Shanta here. She's 11.

Casillas says the children do embroidery, hand stitching and embellishment, as well as making labels, weaving, dyeing, knitting, washing, machine cleaning and button coloring. This boy's job is stitching labels onto jeans. 

They work 20-hour days, six days a week and make around 800 taka/month ($10). The official minimum wage is 5,300 taka ($68). They don't go to school.

That wage was instituted after the deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse of 2013. Rana Plaza is an official factory. Informal ones have far worse conditions.

Can you still look that Forever 21 frock in the eye?

I'm not saying the $6 Billion in founder/CEO Do Wan Chang's offshore accounts was derived from child labor in unregulated Dhaka factories. But this is one reason why knowing exactly who made your $6.99 dress is important.