Educate us on authentic wax prints’

WAX print traders want the local textile manufacturers and the Joint Anti Piracy Task Force against pirated textile prints to engage and educate them on authentic prints by Ghanaian textile manufacturers.

The market women said their interest as traders was to satisfy market demands and so would buy whatever was available for them to sell.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic at the Makola market in Accra, an executive member of the Makola Traders Union, Madam Juliana Brown Afari, explained that now they were a recognised organised group that the task force could collaborate with to fight the issue of pirated textiles on the market.

She described as unfortunate the occasional seizure of their textiles at the market by the task force without any explanation, saying that such action amounted to ‘diplomatic looting’. 

“From time immemorial, there has been no cordial relationship between us and the local manufacturers. If they don’t educate us on the various designs they own for us to be able to differentiate original Ghanaian textiles from pirated ones from outside Ghana, then their objective would be difficult to accomplish.”

To them, Ghanaian authorities should be vigilant at the various points of entry in order to prevent these pirated textiles from getting into the country.

“We are all Ghanaians so we are concerned about the development of our country. Nobody wants to collapse the textile sector. We believe that the pirated prints pass through the borders where officers are stationed to check these things so they must act well.”

They explained that they did not have the financial capacity to take local designs outside Ghana to be duplicated, but alleged that it was some shop owners who sometimes sent the local designs to China to be duplicated and turn round to complain to the task force.  

According to the traders, the unexpected seizure of their prints by the task force had resulted in severe consequences. “Most of us here are very old and this business has been our source of livelihood all these years. So when they come unexpectedly to seize our cloths some go unconscious.”