Members of the Ghana Used Clothes Sellers Affiliation on Wednesday organised a sit-down strike to protest towards OR Basis over its declare that the affiliation’s enterprise is a type of waste that poses a hazard to folks.
The affiliation, which is a member of the Ghana Union of Merchants Affiliation (GUTA), warned the muse and its native collaborators to cease damaging campaigns towards their enterprise as a result of second-hand material dealership is a globally recognised enterprise.
The muse, below its Cease Colonialism marketing campaign, printed an article on its web site which says Kantamanto sees 15 million clothes each week, and 40% of the common bale leaves Kantamanto as waste, inflicting a public well being disaster and destroying livelihoods and the setting.
The affiliation rejected that declare, describing the extensively circulated report as not solely deceptive however an try to collapse the thriving used clothes trade in Ghana.
To counter that declare, the affiliation, with the help of its mom organisation, the Ghana Union of Merchants Affiliation (GUTA), launched into a sit-down strike to point out their anger concerning the improvement.
In an interview, an government member of the affiliation, Mr Aikins Boakye Mensah, stated the OR Basis has, over time, circulated inaccurate and damaging experiences that painting the Kantamanto Market and Ghana’s secondhand clothes commerce as a dumping floor for textile waste.
“They’ve claimed in worldwide publications that over 15 million clothes enter Kantamanto weekly and that 40% find yourself as waste. We discover these figures extremely exaggerated, deceptive, and never consultant of the realities on the bottom,” he stated.
Mr Mensah harassed that almost all of used clothes imported into Ghana is sorted, reused, reworked, and resold, forming the spine of a round financial system that sustains greater than 30,000 direct merchants and over 100,000 livelihoods.
These embrace head porters (kayayei), tailors, truck pushers, transport operators, loaders, and meals distributors, who function each day across the Kantamanto Market.
He added that the used clothes commerce is just not a waste downside, however a livelihood answer, offering inexpensive clothes for tens of millions of Ghanaians and employment for hundreds of households.
Addressing the media, the President of the Ghana Union of Merchants Affiliation (GUTA), Dr Joseph Obeng, stated any try to ban second-hand clothes will trigger GUTA to embark on nationwide demonstrations.
Dr Obeng disclosed that the merchants’ union is placing issues collectively to enter the recycling of second-hand clothes.
“The OR Basis’s portrayal of our commerce as a worldwide environmental hazard is just not solely an assault on the dignity of hardworking Ghanaians, but in addition an try to undermine a vibrant sector of the casual financial system,” he stated.
He additional emphasised, “The OR Basis doesn’t converse for us, nor do they signify our lived experiences or pursuits. We reject the portrayal of Ghana as a worldwide dumping web site — it’s false, dangerous, and disrespectful.”
Mr Mensah referred to as on the federal government, civil society organisations and Ghana’s improvement companions to independently examine the claims.
He due to this fact urged the media to have interaction the management of the affiliation regarding their actions.
OR Basis is a public charity within the USA and a registered charity in Ghana that has been working in each nations since 2011.
Working on the intersection of environmental justice, training and trend improvement, its mission is to establish and manifest options to the dominant mannequin of trend – options that deliver forth ecological prosperity, versus destruction, and that encourage residents to type a relationship with trend that extends past their function as client.
Its objective is to catalyze a justice-led round financial system. There are lots of layers to this work, together with speedy reduction by direct motion on human rights and environmental abuses, instructional programming and consciousness so as to shift particular person actions, and analysis and institutional advocacy to steer systems-level insurance policies and investments.
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