© Reuters
Workers sew clothes inside the Indochine Apparel PLC textile factory in Hawassa Industrial Park in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region, Ethiopia November 17, 2017.
Workers sew clothes inside the Indochine Apparel PLC textile factory in Hawassa Industrial Park in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region, Ethiopia November 17, 2017.
The report, "Made in Ethiopia: Challenges in the Garment Industry's New Frontier," reveals that the African country's bid has come at the expense of workers exploitation, something former Ethiopian Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, was aware of but described as a "generational sacrifice" in order to develop the national industry.
In the investigation, the authors focused on the Hawassa industrial park, about 225 km south of Addis Ababa, the country's capital. Established by the government in 2015, it currently employs about 25,000 workers producing clothes for international labels such as Levi's, Guess, Izod, Tommy Hilfiger, H&M, most of them belonging to the holding PVH.
Comment: Even a biased institution such as the neocon RAND Corporation is capable of producing a truthful report. Their assessment of the degradation of both print and broadcast media from relatively objective discussion and analysis of events to dissemination of personal points of view is a valid observation.
The proliferation of digital portals that allow individuals to get one's message out has both democratized and increased freedom of expression and yet muddied the business of news gathering.