Ethical fashion, now there’s an oxymoron…

Soles4Souls has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that about 16,000 pairs of donated Minnetonka Moccasin shoes ended up for sale on eBay rather than being shipped to needy people in Africa.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court Middle District of Tennessee against five defendants, including Concord, Va.-based Gleaning for the World Inc., a charitable distributor.

This shoe company donated the shoes to Soles4Souls who then handed these shoes to Gleaning For The World who was supposed to send these shoes to Africa for distribution. According to investigations, Gleaning For The World either sold or handed these shoes to another charitable body, passing the shoes to a couple of other organizations and then somehow landed on eBay.

Ahh, we can all breath a sigh of relief and let our cynicism about ethical fashion sleep soundly.