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Modern Slavery

Fast Fashion

You are now entering the Virtual Escape Room: Fast Fashion mission (also known as VER). The online space which you’ve been added to contains crucial documentation regarding a possible modern slavery investigation.

You’ll be reviewing reports written up by Janet Watters, a Slavery Specialist Investigator assigned to a case reported by a garment factory worker, Navya Anand, to Morden Slavery Helpline. Navya is an aspiring fashion designer who immigrated from India to the U.K. with her family at a very young age and has British citizenship. Her parents have struggled over the years with employment and maintaining extra funds to support their family’s health and wellbeing.

After recently finishing classes at college, Navya decided to begin her adulthood by earning her own money and contributing to the household funds to keep them afloat. She gets a job at a garment factory and after three months of working there, she has her suspicions on how they operate the business and support workers. Navya has agreed to cooperate with you and Janet Watters to undercover illegal activities made by the garment factory.

Objectives

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Upon entering the digital space to begin the VER, the objective is to solve and progress through each room with your team members in as short a time as possible to beat the other team/s.

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In order to achieve this, players must review the digital artefacts presented to them to solve the clues and puzzles to progress through the rooms and conclude the case. Player’s will have a maximum of 45-minutes to complete the activity.

Toolkit

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VER: Fast Fashion How-to Guide

A how-to Guide providing background information, details of the digital materials you will require, and advice on how to set up the virtual escape room and facilitate it.

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Materials: Reports, Prompt Letters, Digital Clues and Evidence

The Report Prompt Letters act as a guide for players to follow and navigate for the question or request it desires to achieve the correct answers. The digital clues and evidence materials are essential for players to look through and decode the answers to move on to the next stage of the VER.

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Key Take-aways

When players participate with VER: Fast Fashion, the takeaways which are desired are that each player will have enjoyed the online experience and come out with a greater knowledge of modern slavery and the people who suffer through the calamity of forced labour, sexual abuse and breaches on worker’s rights and conditions.

The garment industry operates under secrecy and deception with almost a total lack of transparency which allows ongoing explications of its workers and their rights. Systemic human rights abuses pervade the global garment industry, from poverty pay, long working hours and denial of trade union rights to significant risks to workers’ health and safety through unsafe buildings, heat, lack of ventilation, no access to clean drinking water and restricted access to the bathroom and use of dangerous chemicals.

Violence and abuse are commonplace, and workers are often attacked or even killed for joining a union and demanding better working conditions. It has been known from media reports over several years that illegal operations and practices have been active in garment factories within the U.K. for most of their biggest fashion brands.

To change the practice of purchasing garments from retail giants, start with shopping via independent, small businesses, research smaller companies who ethically source their materials and resources, and not from monopolies who claim to practise being ethical.

And finally, going to charity shops to find some hidden gems or exploring second-hand fashion communities to sell your unwanted clothes or purchase from other sellers.