HMN RGHTS.

“It’s no wonder in a world filled with iMacs, iPads, and iPhones, so many Is, so many selfies, not enough us’s and we’s, see, technology has made us more selfish and separate than ever.”

Our respect for Charlize knows no bounds. When we caught up with the Oscar-winning actress, mother and partner to Sean Penn, she was characteristically forthright on the subject of women's rights and spoke frankly about her personal relationships, ahead of the release of her latest movie, Mad Max: Fury Road.

ELLE met Charlize just after she had made international headlines by negotiating equal pay for her role in the Snow White And The Huntsman sequel. She spoke candidly to ELLE about the gender pay gap in Hollywood and her experience of being objectified in the film industry:

'I have to give them credit because once I asked, they said yes. They did not fight it. And maybe that’s the message: That we just need to put our foot down. This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing.  It doesn’t mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way.’

Charlize's stance on the pay disparity on American Hustle, and in Hollywood in general is firm: ‘When I thought about the temperature out there – with finding out what Jennifer and Amy were being paid on a set with guy actors who are their counterparts… They’re just as good as any of the guys on there. Yeah, that p*ssed me off!’

The 39-year-old actress also opens up about the anguish of being objectified in Hollywood after her first film role in 2 Days In The Valley:

‘Someone thought it was a good idea to market almost the entire movie on me; objectifying me a little bit. I got a lot of attention from it, but the problem was that, afterwards, it was like, “We want you to do that again. Can you just do that? And so I didn’t work for almost two years.”'

Charlize also speaks openly about her partnership with Sean Penn and the experience of working alongside him on the film The Last Face: 'Putting aside that he’s my partner, he’s the love of my life; for the first time, I felt that my work was really bleeding into my life and that made it hard. There were moments where I was incredibly unfair to him. And moments where I felt like… he was incredibly unfair to me. But it makes you realise that no matter how complicated it gets, the priority is the relationship.’

Read our interview and see the full shoot with Charlize Theron only in the June 2015 issue of ELLE UK, out on newsstands and available via the Apple Newsstand now.

Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron is the star of ELLE's June 2015 issue, on sale now.

Meredith Vieira Schools Stacey Dash About Wage Inequality

Meredith Vieira totally owns Fox News’ Stacey Dash while talking about wage inequality in America in this interview from The Meredith Vieira Show, which aired today.

“Well because I feel like it’s an excuse. It’s the same thing with race, it’s an excuse. Stop making excuses.  If there are opportunities seize them and be prepared for them and be the best if that’s what it takes. If you have to be extraordinary then be extraordinary,” Stacey said on the show.

“I feel like we are fighting an uphill battle, when you look at just the numbers we make 78 cents for every dollar that a man makes.  The rate we are going my daughter who is  22 will be 65 when there is finally pay equality. There’s something wrong, there is something clearly wrong. I don’t know if it’s us just not taking responsibility, we are not given the opportunity,” Meredith retorted. Later on, things get a little cringeworthy.

- in association with Cherwell Life #NotGuilty - contribute to our campaign by sharing your thoughts, experiences, and positive thinking and help establish a strong force of community overriding misdirected victim characterisation

Ione Wells

Not guilty: A letter to my assaulter

TW: Sexual Assault

I cannot address this letter to you, because I do not know your name. I only know that you have just been charged with serious sexual assault and prolonged attack of a violent nature. And I have one question.

When you were caught on CCTV following me through my own neighbourhood from the Tube, when you waited until I was on my own street to approach me, when you clapped your hand around my face until I could not breathe, when you pushed me to my knees until my face bled, when I wrestled with your hand just enough so that I could scream. When you dragged me by my hair, and when you smashed my head against the pavement and told me to stop screaming for help, when my neighbour saw you from her window and shouted at you and you looked her in the eye and carried on kicking me in the back and neck. When you tore my bra in half from the sheer force you grabbed my breast, when you didn’t reach once for my belongings because you wanted my body, when you failed to have my body because all my neighbours and family came out, and you saw them face-to-face. When CCTV caught you running from your attempted assault on me… and then following another woman twenty minutes later from the same tube station before you were arrested on suspicion. When I was in the police station until 5am while you were four floors below me in custody, when I had to hand over my clothes and photographs of the marks and cuts on my naked body to forensic teams – did you ever think of the people in your life?

I don’t know who the people in your life are. I don’t know anything about you. But I do know this: you did not just attack me that night. I am a daughter, I am a friend, I am a girlfriend, I am a pupil, I am a cousin, I am a niece, I am a neighbour, I am the employee who served everyone down the road coffee in the café under the railway. All the people who form those relations to me make up my community, and you assaulted every single one of them. You violated the truth that I will never cease to fight for, and which all of those people represent – that there are infinitely more good people in the world than bad.

This letter is not really for you at all, but for all the victims of attempted or perpetrated serious sexual assault and every member of their communities. I’m sure you remember the 7/7 bombings. I’m also sure you’ll remember how the terrorists did not win, because the whole community of London got back on the Tube the next day. You’ve carried out your attack, but now I’m getting back on my tube.

My community will not feel we are unsafe walking back home after dark. We will get on the last tube home, and we will walk up our streets alone, because we will not ingrain or submit to the idea that we are putting ourselves in danger in doing so. We will continue to come together, like an army, when any member of our community is threatened, and this is a fight you will not win.

Community is a force we all underestimate. We get our papers every day from the same newsagents, we wave to the same woman walking her dog in the park, we sit next to the same commuters each day on the tube. Each individual we know and care about may take up no more than a few seconds of each day, but they make up a huge proportion of our lives. Somebody even once told me that, however unfamiliar they appear, the faces of our dreams are always faces we have seen before. Our community is embedded in our psyche. You, my attacker, have not proved any weakness in me, or my actions, but only demonstrated the solidarity of humanity.

De waanzin van massaproductie en overconsumptie prachtig in beeld gebracht 

La surconsommation (Frans voor de overconsumptie) is een fragment uit de film SAMSARA waarin de wereld van massaproductie en overconsumptie op een prachtige doch shockerende wijze aan de kaak wordt gesteld. De wereld van enorme vleesfabrieken, varkensflats, plofkipboerderijen, megastallen, hypermarkten en fastfoodrestaurants. De wereld waarin economische belangen prevaleren boven dierenwelzijn en een beter milieu. Onze wereld. 

SAMSARA food sequence from Baraka & Samsara

This clip from SAMSARA showing food production and consumption has been getting a lot of attention!

SAMSARA is available on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as On Demand from Amazon, ITunes and Netflix.

barakasamsara.com

Dit meisje heeft je goedkope t-shirt gemaakt. Weet je zeker dat je het nu nog wil? (DUTCH)

Een automaat die t-shirts verkoopt voor een schamele 2 euro. Genoeg animo zou je zeggen. En inderdaad, voorbijgangers waren bij bosjes geïnteresseerd. Maar toen liet het apparaat iets zien waardoor men vriendelijk bedankte… 

A Fascinating 90-Second Look At How Retouching Is Done For Campaigns, Editorials

By Valerie Chang, 01 May 2015

Baltimore residents have been dealing with civil rights violations for years. 

by Nadeska Alexis   4/29/2015

When peaceful protests over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray turned into riots in Baltimore, the word “thugs” was used liberally in the media to describe those who had participated. It was also used by law enforcement officials in Maryland, and even President Obama, to identify the rioters, who were reportedly predominantly high school-age students.

And while rioting is an absolutely reprehensible and ineffective tool to implement change, it’s important to understand the frustrations in Baltimore that led to this point. Freddie Gray’s death was the spark, but the fuel has been spilling out for a long time. The Baltimore-Sun conducted an intensive investigation into the Baltimore Police Department, which details some of the horrors the city’s residents have experienced at the hands of their law enforcement agency.

Here’s what they uncovered:

The Numbers Add Up From 2012 to July 2014, the Baltimore Police Department received 3,048 complaints about police misconduct and investigators were only able to clear 1, 203 of them in court. The city has also faced 317 lawsuits since 2011, from residents who alleged that their civil and constitutional rights were violated by police officers, in infractions raging from assault, to false arrests and false imprisonment.

They settled 102 of those suits at a cost of approximately $5.7 million. According to The Sun, more than 850 officers have been disciplined and 61 have resigned, but many faced no internal punishment, even if they were found to be at fault in court.

Why Don’t We Hear About These Cases? Although the details of these police assault cases are alarming, many of the incidents don’t make the news because of legal restrictions. As the paper put it, “The city’s settlement agreements contain a clause that prohibits injured residents from making any public statement — or talking to the news media — about the incidents.”

And If It Does Reach A Public Forum … If residents do speak about the case, the city is entitled to countersue and take back money from the settlement. And then there’s this: “When settlements are placed on the agenda at public meetings involving the mayor and other top officials, the cases are described using excerpts from police reports, with allegations of brutality routinely omitted.”

Repeat Offenders Are Still On The Loose A high percentage of the civil lawsuits were filed against the city’s Violent Crimes Impact Section, which was finally disbanded in December 2012. Those officers operated in plainclothes and usually had “no accountability” for their tactics, according to the report. If they did face lawsuits, the city did not keep track of them, so some officers were involved in “as many as five lawsuits” but still kept their jobs.

The officers’ defenses in these cases typically involved them arguing that they “feared for their safety” or that the subject was “resisting arrest.” If the frequency of that defense is no cause for doubt for you, recall that the South Carolina officer who was charged with murder in the death of Walter Scott also seemed to imply that he feared for his safety. That was before video surfaced of the officer shooting at Scott eight times as he tried to flee with his back to the officer.

Grandmothers Aren’t Off Limits Venus Green was a retired teacher who spent her later years as a foster parent. In July, 2007, her grandson showed up at home with a gunshot wound, but when they called for help, things got worse. According to 87-year-old Green’s testimony, one officer insisted that her grandson had been shot inside their home and so tried to force his way in. When she asked the officer not to, he used excessive force.

“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up,” she recounted the officer saying. “He pulled me up, pushed me in the dining room over the couch, put his knees in my back, twisted my arms and wrist and put handcuffs on my hands and threw me face down on the couch.” Her shoulder was broken during the incident.

Pregnant Women Aren’t Off Limits Either Starr Brown was pregnant in September 2009, when she saw a group of 20 girls attacking two others on her way home. When the cops showed up and began chastising the victims, she tried to explain to officers what she saw, but that didn’t sit well with them. “He comes and grabs my arms,” Brown recounted. “He’s like, ‘You’re getting arrested. You’re coming with me.’ ” She tried to explain that she was pregnant, but the response, was simply, “[We] hear it all the time.”

“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added. “The skin was gone on my face. … I was tossed like a rag doll. He had his knee on my back and neck. She had her knee on my back trying to put handcuffs on me.”

Handcuffs Are Only The Beginning Salahudeen Abdul-Aziz won a $170,000 settlement after being beaten by police in West Baltimore in 2009. Abdul-Aziz was already handcuffed in a squad car, when he was pulled out and witnesses testified that they saw the officers slam him on the floor and “hit him five or six times with his fist.” The incident left him with a broken nose, a facial fracture, swelling and a hemorrhage in his right eye.

And ’Kidnapping’ Teenagers Isn’t Out Of The Question The Sun reports that in 2010, three officers were charged with kidnapping two teenagers and leaving one in a state park without his shoes or cell phone.

But They’re Trying To Fix The Problem? The city appointed Anthony W. Batts as police commissioner in 2012 and part of Batts’ mission statement was to work to stamp out misconduct within the police force. Batts founded the Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau, which is run by Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez, and aims to ensure that Baltimore residents’ constitutional rights are not violated by police officers.

Since then, the city has reportedly began to track more cases of misconduct and punish officers adequately. They’ve also reportedly made trial boards tougher, which has increased punishment for officers.

more: To Learn More About Racial Bias, Visit LookDifferent.org

Nadeska Alexis:

A native of Grenada, a product of Brooklyn, a student of hip-hop.

Feminists Are Fighting This ‘Body Shaming’ Beach Body Ad With Vandalism 

By Ryan Perry • 04.26.15

Via Twitter / @EscapologistGl

“Are you beach body ready?”

That’s the question the ad above has been asking commuters on the London Underground for the past month. The campaign, which features a skinny, bikini-clad woman in all of its posters, was put together by dietary supplement company Protein World to promote its “weight loss collection.”

Feminists quickly labeled Protein World’s posters “body shaming adverts,” and the resulting counter-campaign has a clever name/hashtag (#EachBodysReady), a Facebook page with over 1,000 supporters, and a petition against the ad with over 42,000 signatures.

While Protein World has openly mocked the counter-campaign (see below), Dove UK snapped back with a parody featuring “plus-sized models”:

Other responses have been less reserved, resorting to hijacking or sabotage or vandalism, depending on your preferred terminology:

Protein World 'Beach Body' Advert Will No Longer 'Appear In Its Current Form', Rule Advertising Watchdog

PA/The Huffington Post UK - By Brogan Driscoll

The advertising watchdog has launched a formal investigation into the "beach body ready" campaign and says it will no longer appear in its current form.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had launched an investigation to establish if the ad for Protein World breaks harm and offence rules or is socially irresponsible.

"We've met with Protein World to discuss its "Are you beach body ready?" ad campaign," a spokesperson said.

"It's coming down in the next three days and, due to our concerns about a range of health and weight loss claims made in the ad, it can't appear again in its current form."

"Although the ad won't appear in the meantime, we've launched an investigation to establish if it breaks harm and offence rules or is socially irresponsible," the spokesperson added.

"We will now carefully and objectively explore the complaints that have prompted concerns around body confidence and promptly publish our findings."

The ad, which stars bikini-clad Australian model Renee Sommerfield, asks whether commuters are "beach body ready" in a promotion for weight loss aids.

Backlash began last week, with body image campaigners and feminists criticising the ad on social media. Now, the adverts are being vandalised and women are posing next to the campaign in their bikinis to show that "all bodies are beach body ready".

This week comments from Katie Hopkins, Susanna Reid and Luisa Zissman added further fuel to the fire. And yesterday TFL confirmed they would be removing the adverts, which had reached the end of their three-week advertising run.

Speaking exclusively to HuffPost UK Lifestyle on Saturday, Somerfield labelled the backlash "very contradictory".

"I think nearly every ad campaign you have ever seen is open to interpretation. But saying the ad is body shaming by body shaming the image is very contradictory," she told HuffPost UK Lifestyle exclusively. "Two wrongs don't make a right."

The 23-year-old vegan, who has been retweeting tweets that support the campaign, says she believes in body positivity.

"I agree that ALL bodies are 'beach body ready'. Skinny, curvy, muscular, petite, tall, short, young and old. Confidence is beautiful no matter what size you are.... Your reflection doesn't define your worth."

She also says that she works hard to look the way she does.

"I am a real person behind the image. I work very hard and live a healthy and active lifestyle which is why Protein World chose me for their campaign. I couldn't work every day as a full time model by starving myself, dieting or not looking after my body. Nourish your body, be kind to it and it will love you right back, no matter your size," she says.

"Protein World's intention is to motivate and inspire their consumers to be the best, healthiest and fittest version of themselves, not to advertise that you have to look a particular way to be 'beach body ready.

"The real goal should always be health, not body size."

Protein World's response however has not been as... ahem... graceful.

In tweets seen by HuffPost UK Lifestyle, the official Protein World account told one tweeter to "grow up", while the CEO Arjun Seth has called others "crazy". Both accounts have also been blocking users who have tweeted to criticise or question the campaign.

"We are a nation of sympathisers for fatties," a spokesperson for Protein World tweeted to Juliette Burton after she signed the change.org petition calling for the removal of the advert. "Why make your insecurities our problem?"

Burton, who has suffered from body dysmorphia and eating disorders, told HuffPost UK Lifestyle: "They are out to attack, subtly, women's self confidence. And men's. They are out to undermine how we feel about ourselves. I felt shock that they would be so disrepectful and so rude.

"I also felt sorry that they are so out of touch. They could make millions if they tuned into the future attitudes of bright young women who deserve to know they are perfect and incredible as they are - and deserve to place health above appearance."

HuffPost UK Lifestyle contacted Protein World on Friday to explain their social media strategy and are awaiting comment.

But Richard Staveley, head of global marketing for Protein World, did tell HuffPost UK Lifestyle on last Thursday that the adverts are here to stay.

"We absolutely have no intention of removing the adverts because of a minority making a lot of noise," he revealed.

"We now run Britain’s largest protein facility, selling our products in over 50 countries to more than 300,000 customers. Most of them are women. How could we possibly be sexist?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dropped Some Serious Truth Bombs About Same-Sex Marriage

Apr 29, 2015 @ 5:01 PM, by Megan Friedman

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg consistently keeps earning her "Notorious RBG" nickname. During this week's oral arguments about same-sex marriage, the 82-year-old feminist icon perfectly summarized the argument for marriage equality.

The justices were questioning Mary Bonauto, an attorney arguing that gay-marriage bans violate the Constitution by not providing equal protection under the law. Justice Samuel Alito brought up the point that "up until the end of the 20th century, there never was a nation or a culture that recognized marriage between two people of the same sex" and that past cultures likely had a good reason for that.

That's where Ginsburg came in, and perfectly tied the issue of same-sex marriage to the feminist movement, arguing that the institution of marriage has indeed changed lately—and for the better:

But you wouldn't be asking for this relief if the law of marriage was what it was a millennium ago. I mean, it wasn't possible. Same-sex unions would not have opted into the pattern of marriage, which was a relationship, a dominant and a subordinate relationship. Yes, it was marriage between a man and a woman, but the man decided where the couple would be domiciled; it was her obligation to follow him. There was a change in the institution of marriage to make it egalitarian when it wasn't egalitarian. And same-sex unions wouldn't – wouldn't fit into what marriage was once.

Later on, when questioning the lawyers on the other side of the case, she hammered the point home:

We have changed our idea about marriage is the point that I made earlier. Marriage today is not what it was under the common law tradition, under the civil law tradition. Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female. That ended as a result of this Court's decision in 1982 when Louisiana's Head and Master Rule was struck down. And no State was allowed to have such such a marriage anymore. Would that be a choice that a State should be allowed to have? To cling to marriage the way it once was?

But she wasn't alone in seriously challenging the concept that the institution of marriage would be threatened. Justice Sonia Sotomayor got heated when a lawyer argued that the institution of marriage is meant to tie children to their biological parents.

Marriage doesn't do that on any level. How many married couples do fathers with the benefits or the requirements of marriage walk away from their children? So it's not that the institution alone does it and that without it that father is going to stay in the marriage. He made a choice. It should be gender neutral. Some mothers do the same thing. But my point is that I'm not sure how I get to the point that Justice Breyer is making: How does withholding marriage from one group, same-sex couples, increase the value to the other group?

Simple Experiment Shows Racism Is Alive And Well In America

Thousands of resumes were mailed to companies with open positions. They were identical except for one important difference: one name sounded like it would typically belong to an African-American person, while the other sounded like it would belong to someone Caucasian. Who do you think got called back?

Mark Ruffalo answers the sexist questions Scarlett Johansson usually deals with

By Neha Prakash

First, Loki. Then, Thanos. Now, the most evil villain to face the Avengers yet: sexism.

Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson sat down for an Avengers: Age of Ultron press interview with Cosmo UK, who decided to switch things up for the sake of gender equality, asking Ruffalo the questions his co-star Johansson usually gets asked.

As a result, the viewers got some very informative (read: banal) info from the Hulk including his diet and cleansing routines, while we learned how the Black Widow preps for her action stunts.

Laverne Cox Strips Down in Gorgeous New Photoshoot

"I felt this could be really powerful for the communities that I represent."

By Victoria Dawson Hoff, Apr 16, 2015 @ 9:11 AM

She might have been hesitant at first, but when Allure approached Laverne Cox to participate in the mag's nude issue, she considered what was at stake and went for it, for a very important reason. "I said no initially, thought about it, and said no again," she says in the new interview. "But I'm a black transgender woman. I felt this could be really powerful for the communities that I represent."

Zeg H&M, is dat duurzaam doen niet in strijd met het bedrijfsmodel? (DUTCH)

Door Camil Driessen op dinsdag 24 maart 2015

Modeketen H&M groeit en groeit. Uit vanochtend gepresenteerde cijfers blijkt dat de verkopen het eerste kwartaal met 15 procent zijn toegenomen. Daarmee trekken de Zweden de lijn van 2014 door. 

Tegelijk maakt H&M goede sier qua duurzaamheid. Deze maand werd het uitgeroepen tot een van de meest ethische bedrijven en kreeg het complimenten van Greenpeace.

NRC Q spreekt Environmental sustainability manager Henrik Lampa aan wie dat mede te danken is. Lampa werkt sinds 2002 op afdeling Maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen.

Wanneer kwam bij H&M hét kantelpunt op duurzaamheidsvlak? “Intern was dat in 2009 toen we de verantwoordelijkheid verplaatsten van onze afdeling naar individuele managers door het hele bedrijf. Bij de buitenwereld zag ik vanaf 2006 echt een verandering. Dat was de tijd van onder meer An Inconvenient Truth. Toen werd het oké om uit de kast te komen als duurzaamheidsfan.”

H&M heeft er mede voor gezorgd dat het normaal is om zo vaak mogelijk nieuwe kleding te kopen. Dat lijkt nogal tegenstrijdig met duurzaamheid, niet? “Daar raak je iets heel belangrijks. De middenklasse heeft steeds meer koopkracht. De wereldbevolking groeit en als we zo doorgaan komen we in de knoop met grondstoffen. Het is de vraag hoe we daar mee omgaan. Wij kunnen wel onze prijzen verhogen, maar dat willen we niet want dan gaan we terug in de tijd. Toen mode duur was en alleen voor rijke mensen. Wij willen mode voor iedereen.”

En dus? “Daarom werken we aan een gesloten ‘circulair model’ bijvoorbeeld door chemische recycling en het verzamelen van gebruikte kleding en huishoudtextiel. Met gerecyclede stoffen kun je zo een heel eind komen, bij andere grondstoffen moeten we er nog aan werken om te zorgen dat ze duurzaam zijn.”

Je kan denken dat bedrijven alleen duurzaam doen vanwege hun imago. Snap je dat cynisme? “Ik kan het wel begrijpen. Veel bedrijven gedragen of gedroegen zich ook cynisch. Bij H&M komt het denk ik doordat veel mensen geen idee hebben van wat wij aan duurzaamheid doen. We kunnen ook niet verwachten dat mensen ons sustainability-rapport van 92 pagina’s lezen, dus wij moeten beter ons best doen om het goed over te brengen.”

Ik lees in dat rapport dat jullie een modellenbeleid hebben? “Ja wij vinden dat we een verantwoordelijkheid hebben bij het kiezen van de juiste modellen. Ze mogen niet te dun zijn, want het is niet gezond om te dun te zijn.”

Waarom werken jullie samen met ngo’s? “Omdat ze ons scherp houden en veel kennis hebben. Met Solidaridad, dat armoede bestrijdt in Afrika, zijn we een strategisch partnerschap aangegaan voor de verduurzaming van de textielketen. We werken samen op het gebied van eerlijke lonen en betere arbeidsomstandigheden, maar zetten ons ook in voor de vermindering van katoen- en waterverbruik.”

Hoe werkt de rekensom rond duurzaamheid? Ben je niet in het nadeel ten opzichte van concurrenten? “Jij hebt een ouderwets beeld! Het maakt ons juist competitiever. Als we het elektriciteitsverbruik in onze filialen naar beneden krijgen, hebben we daar direct voordeel van.”

Uitbuiting? Zó goedkoop? Dat kan toch niet, Primark? (DUTCH)

Door Barbara Rijlaarsdam op woensdag 22 april 2015

Hoe kan het toch dat Primark zo goedkoop is? Die vraag krijgt Paul Lister naar eigen zeggen bovengemiddeld vaak. Hij is de man die bij het moederbedrijf van Primark, Associated British Foods, over de ethiek gaat.

De ramp in het Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, vrijdag twee jaar geleden, versterkte het beeld dat Primark zaken zou doen met schimmige leveranciers en dat de arbeiders in lagelonenlanden onder erbarmelijke omstandigheden zouden werken. Hoe kan de kleding anders zo goedkoop zijn?

“De niet expliciet uitgesproken ondertoon is: er zal wel iets niet in de haak zijn”, zegt Lister. “Maar het is een misvatting dat naarmate je kleding goedkoper is, het slechter gesteld is met de arbeidsomstandigheden. Je kunt Primark niet beoordelen op zijn prijzen. Die zijn laag omdat we anders werken dan andere bedrijven, niet omdat we mensen uitbuiten.”

Hoe dat zit? Dit is waarom Primark zo goedkoop is:

1. Geen reclame

“Wij adverteren niet,” zegt Lister. “Je zult van ons geen dure reclames tegenkomen.” Alleen daarmee bespaart Primark volgens hem al “honderden miljoenen” ten opzichte van concurrenten.

In 2008 opende Primark zijn eerste winkel in Nederland, intussen heeft het bedrijf hier twaalf vestigingen. Hordes vrouwen, met name tieners en twintigers, komen op de goedkope kleding af – de bruine papieren Primark-tassen zijn een vast onderdeel van het straatbeeld geworden.

2. Slim inkopen

Het gros van de Primark-kleding komt uit   China  – alleen al in dat land werkt Primark met 900 fabrieken. Op de tweede plaats staat Bangladesh: in 82 Bengaalse fabrieken wordt Primark-kleding gemaakt. Daarna volgt India.

Primark is afhankelijk van lagelonenlanden, beaamt Lister. “Net als het merendeel van de kledingindustrie. Ik denk niet dat dat per se slecht is. Zolang we maar zorgen dat mensen in een veilige omgeving kunnen werken, eerlijk betaald krijgen en normale werkuren hebben.”

Wereldwijd doet Primark zaken met 1.400 leveranciers. Volgens het bedrijf verschaft Primark inkomen aan meer dan 850.000 werknemers, verdeeld over drie continenten. En hoe je dan slim inkoopt? “Wij kopen truien in op een moment dat geen andere winkelketen dat doet.”

3. De mode volgen

Een anders aspect wat van invloed is op de prijs: het moment van inkoop. Ver van tevoren, in Primarks geval. “Wij zijn niet trendsettend, wij volgen de mode. We bestellen best ver vooruit. Het is niet zo dat wat je op de catwalk ziet, een week later in onze winkels ligt.”

4. Groot inkopen

Heel groot. Denk: 350 miljoen paar sokken en 200 miljoen T-shirts per jaar. “Wij werken met lage marges en een minimale overhead”, zegt Lister.

5. Snel betalen = korting

En, zegt hij, tot slot betaalt Primark zijn leveranciers heel snel. Hoe snel, wil hij niet zeggen. In minder dan zestig dagen  in ieder geval. Tegenwoordig is een termijn van 120 dagen geen uitzondering. Lister: “Voor die snelle betaling krijgen we ook weer korting. Al die besparingen gaan rechtstreeks van de verkoopprijs af.”

‘Geef moeders én vaders een jaar ouderschapsverlof’

(DUTCH)

Baby’s niet naar de crèche brengen, maar gewoon zelf verzorgen is veel beter voor het kind én voor de samenleving. 

Dinsdag, 28 april 2015, 12:07 uur

Dat vindt de Nijmeegse hoogleraar ontwikkelingspsychologie Carolina de Weerth. Als het aan haar ligt krijgen vaders en moeders daarom een jaar betaald ouderschapsverlof, zegt ze tegen LINDAnieuws.

Klachten Want de hechting tussen ouder en kind is zó belangrijk. Daarbij is uit ons onderzoek gebleken dat kinderen die in hun eerste levensjaar naar de crèche gaan, een hoger stresshormoon hebben. Er komt zoveel op de baby’s af: geluiden, wisseling van verzorgers en veel kinderen bij elkaar, legt ze uit. De jongere kinderen kunnen door deze stress wellicht niet alleen mentale, maar ook lichamelijke klachten krijgen.

Gezonder op latere leeftijd Ze krijgen vaker een snotneus, sneller koorts én De Weerth heeft gezien dat kinderen van moeders die gestressd zijn tijdens de zwangerschap, vaker ziek zijn en andere bacterien in hun darmen hebben. Juist je darmen zijn belangrijk voor je gezondheid, het verteren van voedsel en opnemen van vitamines. De uitkomst van deze onderzoeken heeft De Weerth naast een onderzoek van Unicef gelegd, waarin staat dat als je jongere kinderen vóór hun eerste jaar weinig in contact brengt met stresssituaties en veel één op één contact hebt, ze op latere leeftijd een stuk gezonder kunnen zijn. 

Onvoldoende Daarnaast is het volgens De Weerth belangrijk om te kijken naar de kwaliteit van de kinderopvang. In 2012 is er een rapport naar buiten gekomen waarin staat dat maar 12 procent van de kinderopvang een ‘voldoende’ kreeg. Er zijn gewoonweg te weinig kinderleidsters voor te veel kinderen. En dit is ook niet goed voor de baby, helemáál niet in het eerste levensjaar. 

‘Investeren in een goed begin’ De Weerth snapt dat mensen zonder kinderen kunnen zeggen: ‘Een jaar ouderschapsverlof is onzin. Want waarom zou ik voor de kinderen van mijn buren betalen?’, maar volgens haar is het juist een investering: Omdat individuen later gezonder en gelukkiger zijn, maken ze veel minder gebruik van ziektekostenverzekeraars. Econoom James Heckman heeft zelfs uitgerekend dat dit écht goedkoper is op lange termijn. Het is enorm belangrijk om te investeren in een goed begin van het leven.