This is a very serious debate that can lead to many disagreements. When buying one Clothing, wash before use? Is it really a good option to walk out of the store with the new piece and put it on right away? If you have never had this doubt, you know that your hygiene can be at risk.

Clothes leave the store looking good, ironed and smelling nice, but what’s behind them the eyes can’t see. Perhaps the piece purchased could have been purchased by someone else and exchanged and then returned to the store to be displayed by someone else. The same nice, clean and wellironed tshirt was touched by several others People to know if the fabric was really comfortable when people don’t go to the changing table to try it on.

This, of course, when the clothes are already in stores, because before that the process can cause even greater inconvenience in terms of personal hygiene.

“From production to sale, clothing is teeming with all kinds of organisms,” says Philip Tierno, PhD, clinical professor of microbiology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

What do new clothes hide?

The first reason clothes should be washed before use is contact dermatitis. It is a type of eczema caused by an itchy skin that can cause a lot of discomfort. Dermatitis occurs when skin is exposed to harsh chemicals or dyes that are added to clothing during manufacturing.

According to senior design professor Frances Kozen, who focuses on textile science, during production, clothing undergoes a treatment process that uses chemicals, for example, to make the piece resistant to stains, bleach, antimold, and others. Clothing can be accompanied by excess color, particularly darker pieces, which can cause skin reactions.

“Residual chemicals from any of these treatments can remain on the fabric, and because clothing labels don’t identify the chemicals used in production or the types of dyes used, it’s best to launder to reduce exposure,” Professor Kozen said.

The teacher’s tip is to wash the clothes in hot water for 25 minutes and then rinse with plenty of water. Before doing so, make sure the part can be washed with hot water, as some require the water to be extra cold.

Clothing should be washed even if there are no dyes. You simply have no idea where the clothes might have gone and your health is at stake.

Benjamin Copper, a 27-year-old Torontonian, is suspected of killing seven teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 17 in the Ottawa and Kingston areas. The crimes are believed to have happened between 2014 and 2022.

At this point, none of the allegations against Mr. Cooper have been proven in court.

Gymnastics Ontario President and CEO Dave Sandford said they were first made aware of the allegations against Mr. Cooper in October 2021, a month after his last job at Trillium Gymnastics in Kingston, Utah, Ontario.

After formal complaints were filed in March 2022, Gymnastics Ontario launched its own investigation the following month and notified Mr Cooper of his suspension.

Mr Sandford says police were informed afterwards.

We had two complainants who participated in our disciplinary grievance process. About the same time the announcement was made, two other people came forward with very serious allegations, and then I contacted Ottawa Police, Mr. Sandford, in an interview with CBC.

Both Trillium Gymnastics and the Ottawa Gymnastics Centre, two of Mr. Cooper’s former employers, were made aware of the investigation he was under, but the other clubs in Ontario were.

In any trial, you want to protect the integrity and confidentiality of both the victim or complainant and the accused, Sandford replies.

According to the CEO, Gymnastics Ontario monitored Mr. Cooper through its membership database and in discussions with local clubs to ensure he was not an active coach.

Mr Sandford adds that he was unaware of the seriousness of the allegations until police this week announced Mr Cooper’s arrest.

An open secret

Kim Shore, a former gymnast and co-founder of Gymnasts for Change Canada, an advocacy group fighting abuse in sports, finds it disturbing that other Ontario clubs have not been made aware of the allegations, even after an internal or police investigation has been launched.

But Ms Shore says even when allegations are made public, they often aren’t put together, which could show an emerging pattern of behavior, she says.

Kim Shore, center, co-founder of Gymnasts for Change Canada.

Photo: The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

“This open secrecy embedded in the policies of many of these provincial agencies is really there to protect the abuser. He doesn’t help the kids.”

— A quote from Kim Shore, co-founder of Gymnasts for Change Canada

The charges come just months after a CBC investigation found that Gymnastics Canada had promoted a coach to one of the organization’s top positions, despite complaints of inappropriate behavior by female coaches and gymnasts.

Other sports such as ice hockey and youth organizations have recently had to deal with turbulent revelations.

According to Ms. Shore, it’s not just about sexual abuse in sport.

Verbal, emotional and psychological abuse are commonplace, she says, leaving children in a vulnerable position.

This is not an isolated incident, Ms. Shore continues. I think it’s a systemic problem. I think there is a whisper network that has been covering up this abuse at the risk of innocent young children just trying to engage in an activity that brings them joy.

She is concerned that the allegations in this case date back almost ten years without an adult coming forward.

Our policies and practices are failing our children, she continues.

The Ottawa Club is not aware of the extent of the allegations

The Ottawa Gymnastics Center (OGC) has confirmed that Mr. Cooper was employed by the club from 2014 to 2019 as a recreational and competitive level coach and may not have worked with children as young as five years old.

The club says it has been made aware of Gymnastics Ontario’s internal investigation but does not know the full extent of the allegations.

We weren’t aware of it, said Mike Vieira, the club’s interim general manager.

He acknowledged that gymnastics, like other sports, has faced quite a bit of controversy over abuse, but he thinks that’s changing.

This sport, especially the culture of silence, the Old Boys Club, as you like to call it, is being dismantled, he says. It’s not like… we circulate [entraîneurs] and people just stuffed things under the rug or whatever.

Mr Vieira adds that every coach has to go through an extensive selection process and that rules are in place – and were in effect in 2014 – to ensure there are always two adults from two different programmes.

I think we turned every stone we could have back then and we continue to do so. It’s devastating because we’re really, really trying to make sure our place is a safe place and we thought that was it, he said.

CBC made several attempts to contact Trillium Gymnastics, but to no avail.

With information from Kimberly Molina, CBC

The square in Medellín, home to the world-famous sculptures by Colombian painter Fernando Botero, has become the focus of a heated debate over whether Colombia’s second-largest city privileges tourists while denying space to its residents. After Mayor Daniel Quintero decided to surround the square with police fences and set up 24-hour surveillance, the 90-year-old artist, who donated the works to the city, expressed his opposition.

“I have been following the news about Plaza Botero closely, both those that talk about security problems and the latter about its closure. For this reason, I want to express that it has always been my will that this space be available to all citizens and that the Museum of Antioquia is its main administrator,” said Botero in a letter he sent to the director of the museum and so she asked to transfer him to the town hall. The museum had not previously been informed of the operation.

The most recognized Colombian artist in the world made it clear in his letter: “If the city can move freely, that’s how it should be,” he writes. Mayor Quintero has responded that it was not a “closure” but a “hug”, blaming the media for what he says has “blurred management”. “Plaza Botero has never been closed and will never be closed. We firmly believe in public space,” replies the President.

Currently, however, the square is surrounded by police fences and there are three checks where agents decide who gets through and who doesn’t. Inside are the 23 sculptures by Botero. Civil organizations complain that it is being separated and that tourists are allowed to enter, but not the historic residents of downtown Medellín. “This city is a product for foreigners and not for those who live and survive on and on the streets, who constantly do so amidst social inertia,” said spokesmen for the Everyday Homeless Corporation, which fiercely defends the rights of people living in poverty who usually inhabited the Plaza Botero and its surroundings. “Medellín is a model city,” they say.

Vendors can no longer walk and sell in Plaza Botero.Santiago Mesa

Even before the artist’s donation in 1997, the square was inhabited by sex workers and the homeless. For years they have coexisted with tourists and visitors who came to see the city’s postcard, to touch the tongue of the dog’s sculpture or the gladiator’s member, to take photos with the sculptures that became the image of the city. But after the pandemic, security deteriorated and robberies erupted, immortalized in viral videos.

Newsletter

Current affairs analysis and the best stories from Colombia, delivered to your inbox every week

GET THIS

That, that of safety, is the mayor’s argument for enclosing the space. Quintero said that in the first week of fencing, “the entrance filters favored the arrest of three people, the seizure of bladed weapons, a traumatic weapon and narcotics.” And that his intervention ended with “zero serious crimes and happy tourists.”

But not only Botero is dissatisfied; This Friday, social organizations demonstrated in the square and made an SOS for the square with photos of street residents while denouncing that it was a matter of privatization of public space. “It seems to me that this is the beginning of another phase of what is called a city project, the question is: city for whom? It is not because of the residents that we feel excluded from public space,” says Carlos, who has been living on the street for 7 years. “The idea of ​​closing this space is sold because of insecurity, consumerism, street vending and prostitution, but one wonders why they don’t rather do a public space program that doesn’t serve to exclude the citizen,” asks the gentleman.

Sex workers and red (coffee) sellers have also organized themselves and, with the advice of lawyers, sent a petition to Mayor Quintero. They demand that he explain the directive that the police must “establish entry criteria for citizens”, that he show the administrative act delineating the zone of tolerance for sex work, that I explain what serious crimes have decreased in the plaza and around below among other things, to uncover the acts of social attention they practice in the area.

Valery Parra Ramírez, a transgender woman who works as a prostitute in central Medellín, told the EFE news agency that this intervention was “not an embrace, but a persecution” for the sex workers, removing them from a place that “the blanket, the food, the upbringing of the children and the daily livelihood”. “Maestro Botero, who made this place possible, celebrated its opening with whores by his side. He said we were welcome too, but now morality has aesthetic criteria,” he told the agency.

No one denies that post-pandemic situations of insecurity have also occurred, also involving women workers in the area and robberies with high levels of violence. However, for the social organizations demonstrating against the closure, Quintero’s decision is only an aesthetic solution. “A city’s problems don’t go away by erecting fences and depriving vulnerable populations of public space,” says El Derecho a No Obedecer, which is affiliated with the Otraparte Corporation, which is owned by philosopher Fernando González, another icon of Antioquian culture .

A man looks at one of the sculptures that Botero donated to the city.Santiago Mesa

After the bloody years of drug violence, the city has made tremendous efforts to show itself transformed. Their internationalization has always been the focus of various municipal administrations. “In this image that wants to present itself as perfect, of a city that has fixed all these problems, the plaza becomes a stark x-ray of the job incomplete,” María del Rosario Escobar, director of the Museum of Antioquia, told Escobar EL PAÍS.

“The center has the problems of the peripheries, with residents living below the poverty line and living in run-down places, migrants, poor souls expelled from the productive system, the unemployed,” adds Escobar, who recalls that Quintero was already once closed Plaza with “terrible results”. For her, it’s not just about working with the hurt people to integrate into the public space and identify the dark forces that have thrown the square into a new dynamic of violence.

As in 2002, when Plaza Botero was inaugurated, the city is discussing a city model. “What the mayor is proposing is a return to that era of denial of public space that was so common in the ’90s. We can’t give up. What’s at stake is the city model and a new civic pact against people who have historically been denied the right to be there,” concludes Escobar, warning that the mayor’s office has plans to close the space permanently.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the latest information about the country.