Stitched UP by Steve Cole

Hanh lived in a village with her parents, sisters and grandma, dreaming of someday finding a good job in fashion. That day seemed to arrive when "the Man" and "the Woman" came to their village. Smartly dressed, they told Hanh's parents they worked for a fashion company opening a new shop in Hanoi. Young girls were being trained and hired as shop assistants. They claimed this was a great opportunity for Hanh. 

The woman claimed to know Hanh's father's cousin in another province, and that his neighbour's daughter, Tuyet would be joining them. She also told Hanh's parents that if she worked for a year, they would give her parents three million dong (just over one hundred US dollars). When Hanh asked how she would continue her schooling, her father suggested she could "catch-up" when she returned after a year. Desperate for money, her parents decided to sign the contract even though her father could not read.

Two days later, Hanh left on a minibus for Hanoi. At the station in Bac Kan, Hanh and her mother met Tuyet who was very excited. Twelve girls boarded the bus that day. On the journey, Hanh and Tuyet met and talked with two other girls Ping and Chau.When they arrived in Hanoi in the middle of the night, they were quickly taken into the factory.

Now three months later, Hanh finds herself not working in a fashion shop but in a sweatshop making jeans and jackets. Along with other boys and girls, Hanh works twelve hours a day, cutting, sanding, pressing and distressing denim until her fingers bleed.

Every morning Hanh and the other girls are awoken by seventeen-year-old Yen who takes them to the factory floor. They must work for two hours before they can use the bathroom and breaks are only eight minutes, twice a day. Thirteen-year-old Tuyet works the large steam presses, Chau sews on the tags and labels, fifteen-year-old Ping "runs small electric sanders over the seams and hems and pocket edges." Hanh uses a sewing machine to embroider designs on the distressed jeans. Kim-Ly sews tiny beads and buttons onto the designs Hanh embroiders.

On this early morning, Tuyet, who has been coughing a lot lately, feels she cannot continue to work because of her asthma. In an attempt to get out of the factory, she falls into Ping who is working behind her. Tuyet claims she burned her hand on the steam press and Ping tells an angry Yen that Tuyet grabbed her sander as she fell. Tuyet is taken away for the day and doesn't reappear until well after dinner that night.

Tuyet returns, her hand wrapped in bloodied gauze, and reveals that she is being made to work in a cotton factory picking up scraps of cotton t-shirts. Tuyet's situation makes Hanh remember a line from a poem written by Ho Chi Minh, "When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out." This gives her an idea that, with the help of a charity, frees them from the sweatshop.

Discussion

Stitched UP is a short work of realistic fiction focusing in on the reality of fast fashion: that the cheap clothes we wear in North America come at a high cost to those living in the developing world making those clothes.

In Stitched Up, author Steve Cove uses the character of Hanh to reveal the way young girls are exploited and tricked into working in fast fashion sweatshops in countries like Vietnam. They are usually from poor families, desperately in need of money and whose parents may sign contracts they cannot read nor understand. There is often the promise of a good job and money that will be sent home. In reality, as in Hanh's experience, the factories are poorly maintained with many serious workplace safety and health issues where the workers usually underage and/or involved in forced labour. They are either poorly paid or not paid at all. To prevent these workers from leaving they are locked into their cramped living spaces at night.

Hanh, whose family is tricked into signing her into forced labour,  is portrayed as a courageous young girl, determined not to give up on her dream of regaining her freedom and following through with her plans to finish her schooling and have her own business. Although her initial plan doesn't quite work the way she intended, in the end with the help of a local charity that becomes aware of the illegal sweatshop, she and the other children are freed. But during her time working there, Hanh experiences hardship, dangerous working conditions and workplace threats and violence.

Stitched Up offers the message to young readers to rethink buying fast fashion because it exploits young people just like themselves, who have similar dreams for the future. Cove, in his "Why I wanted to tell this story" section at the back of the novel, offers some hard statistics on the number of children in forced labour and a few suggestions for how we can all make a difference.

Stitched Up is a short novel, with a larger font size and comic style illustrations by Oriol Vidal, making it an ideal high interest-low vocabulary offering for reluctant readers. It tackles, with a simple story and believable characters, a global issue we should all be concerned with.

Book Details:

Stitched UP by Steve Cole
Edinburgh: Barrington Stoke Ltd.   2022
122 pp