I’ve been lucky enough to travel to India twice now with my husband who grew up in Delhi. It’s a magical country. From the second you land, you are inundated with sensory overload. The smells, the chaos, the lack of order - it truly feels like a different planet.
When I came across the brand Sudara, I was inspired by their mission: to empower women to live in freedom from sex-slavery through safe, sustainable living-wage employment. Every pair of Punjammies®, robes and slouch pants are made proudly in India.
I knew I loved the super cute Punjammies® (not to mention the punny Punjabi reference!) but wanted to learn more about what’s actually going on in India. Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.
According to an article published in The Telegraph,
“India was found by the global slavery index to have close to eight million victims of modern slavery — to which human trafficking contributes significantly — a number that is set to rise each year given the abysmal rates of conviction.”
8 million people is roughly the entire population of New York City.
As a company that lives by a #FeelGoodDanceBetter mantra, we saw the Sudara robes and knew we had to talk about them.
Many professional dancers wear some kind of robe in their dressing rooms so we reached out to The Joffrey Ballet’s Julia Rust to see if she would be willing to check the Sudara robe out.
Here's what Julia had to say:
"It was such a treat getting to wear the Sudara robe! First of all, it's incredibly soft, my favorite colors, well made, and it served the purpose of allowing me to put on stage makeup and get my hair up and headpieces in without fear of everything being wrecked when it was time to get into costume. So, with that said, I would have invested in this robe for those practical reasons alone. But, there's no denying that this isn't just a simple robe. Knowing that the purchase of each robe helps empower and free women from sex slavery by employing them with a living wage is truly remarkable."
Every time you wear Sudara product you are spreading freedom. #FeelGoodDanceBetter
