Smiling with Prince Harry by her side in poverty-stricken Colombia, Meghan Markle strode hand-in-hand with her husband into a school carrying a pristine white bag on her shoulder. 

Days after the photo op last summer it emerged that the Duchess of Sussex had become a minority shareholder in Cesta Collective, a business set up by two wealthy New Yorkers who employ a small army of Rwandan women to weave their bags.

Cesta promises ‘dignified employment opportunities for talented female artisans’ – but soon after Meghan’s investment, it was reported that it pays some of the women who make them as little as 10 pence an hour.

One weaver who survived the Rwandan genocide of 800,000 Tutsi people in 1994 admitted she was praying to God that she could be paid more to make the bags – which are sold for upwards of £700.

But despite the furore, today Meghan is helping flog the bags and earning commission on each item sold via her new ‘ShopMy’ site.

According to ShopMy’s co-founder and president Tiffany Lopinsky, her ‘creators’, as she calls people like the Duchess, can make over a million dollars per year, MailOnline can reveal, meaning Meghan’s Mall, as it has been branded online, could be another money-spinner for her. 

ShopMy has said that commissions earned from the platform typically range from between 10 to 30 per cent ‘depending on the brand or retailer’.

While the details of Meghan’s deal are confidential, it seems she could taking home up to £210 per Cesta bag sold via her store. MailOnline has asked Cesta to comment.

Moments from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Colombian tour

Her ShopMy site features 32 items ‘curated’ by the duchess with ‘affiliated’ links to their brands websites. 

Amongst them is Cesta’s Crossbody bag, which she wore in Colombia last August during the Sussexes’ pseudo-royal tour. 

MyShop’s boss Ms Lopinsky said recently: ‘We’ve had creators make over a million dollars in commissions. The higher earners on our platform can make $100,000 per month, but it varies widely. Some creators treat ShopMy as a secondary income stream, making a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month. Others make affiliate sales their primary revenue stream and don’t even take paid sponsorships anymore because they prefer the flexibility of earning through commissions’.

Cesta Collective specializes in woven bags featuring a basket-weaving technique used by female artisans in Rwanda. The baskets are shipped to Italy, where they are crafted into handbags in limited batches that are sold through the company’s e-commerce site, now linked to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s shop.

A Mail on Sunday investigation discovered that weavers making Cesta bags from their cement or mudbrick homes in isolated, rural villages in Rwanda can earn as little as 82p for an eight-hour day.

The figure is less than half the £1.70 a day the World Bank considers as the ‘extreme poverty’ line.

Meghan and Cesta have been accused of using the women making the bags as a marketing tool.

One weaver named Didacienne Musengimana admitted she made less than £10 per bag, which take around three days to make if she works eight hours per day, which works out at around 38p per hour.

‘We use our income to supplement what we earn from farming, but it’s difficult. I can’t say the money is bad, but I do wish it was more’, she said.

She makes the Taco Tote, which sells for more than £800.

Cesta Collective, which boasts of its ‘fair compensation practices’, insisted at the time that the earning figures do take into account women’s other sources of income and said the World Bank figure was outdated and not equally applicable to all Rwandans. 

But the World Bank did confirm the accuracy of the figure to the MoS.

Meghan’s endorsement of the ‘incredible’ company has already worked wonders for its sales. 

When she was pictured carrying one of Cesta’s bags on a dinner date with Prince Harry, the company’s wealthy New York-based co-founders Erin Ryder and Courtney Weinblatt Fasciano said it led to the most profitable week in their company’s history.

It now remains to be seen if Meghan’s own curated ‘collection of the things I love’ – along with some affiliated links that could pay a commission for clicks or purchases – will be another boost for Cesta.

In announcing her financial backing in August, the Duchess said: ‘With Cesta, I really started to understand how many women’s lives were being impacted and uplifted through their work. That was incredibly important to me.’ 

A feature in fashion bible Vogue followed.

But after speaking to several of Cesta’s female weavers, the MoS revealed that:

• Workers were shocked at how much the bags sold for compared to what they earned, and said they hope for a pay rise following this newspaper’s investigation;
• Women have their meagre earnings deducted if a bag is deemed substandard;
• Some workers have to pay for the raw material themselves, and to cover transport costs to get it to their remote villages;
• They are not full-time employees of Cesta and are paid by the bag, so earnings drop if orders go down.

British fashion influencer George James said at the time: ‘It is inappropriate to use these women as a marketing tactic for your brand, especially when they are not full-time employees, nor do they have any ownership of your brand…

‘These women should not be used cynically to make shopaholic western women feel better for purchasing yet another handbag, which they don’t need. That is what we call poverty porn, and it’s barely okay when charities do it. It’s completely inappropriate when for-profit businesses do it.’

And Illuminée Bayisabe, 60, who lives in a hamlet in the valleys of Ruhango and had been weaving since she was nine, said: ‘The gap between the price [they sell for] and what we get paid is very big.’

Their humble lives contrast starkly with the affluence enjoyed by Cesta’s founders.

Meghan Markle launches Instagram shop with handpicked fashion

Privately-educated Ms Weinblatt Fasciano, the daughter of a Harvard Medical School professor, studied at an Ivy League university and lives in a sleek, two-bedroom apartment in trendy Brooklyn with her husband Michael – a marketing director who has been an executive at US investment bank Goldman Sachs – and their goldendoodle, Pepper. 

They bought the flat for £692,000 in 2017. Ms Fasciano was a marketing director at Marie Claire magazine and worked at designer shoe brand Loeffler Randall before founding Cesta in 2018.

Meanwhile, Ms Ryder was an intern at Chanel and studied at the £44,000-a-year School of Design in New York and Paris. Photographs on social media reveal Ms Ryder enjoying skiing holidays and multiple trips to Rwanda as part of her work with Cesta.

The company has been hit by critisism before, particularly over its use of images of Rwandan weavers to help promote the bags following Meghan’s investment.

A Cesta Collective spokesman said: ‘Cesta Collective was founded to create consistent, dignified employment opportunities for talented female artisans in developing regions. Since inception, we have upheld our mission and remain committed to growing our business and the livelihoods of those who help bring our handbags to life.

‘Cesta has acted in good faith and understanding through our partnership with All Across Africa which operates on the ground in Rwanda. Recent allegations are an attempt to discredit that work with speculative information that has been unethically manipulated. We remain committed to ensuring success is shared equitably by everyone involved.’

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