Labor and Human Rights in the Fashion Industry
The global way and retail manufacture'southward reliance on producing quick-turnaround appurtenances at a depression cost through outsourcing and complex, globalised supply chains has allowed forced labour to thrive, workers' rights advocates warn, claiming that major fashion brands profiting from the model seem reluctant to change.
The apparel sector employs over 60 1000000 workers worldwide, co-ordinate to the World Bank Group. And while 97 percent of style and retail brands accept codes of conduct and corporate social responsibleness (CSR) standards, such policies are neither effective in preventing forced labour nor in ensuring remedy outcomes for workers, co-ordinate to advocacy group KnowTheChain.
KnowTheChain'southward 2021 Wearing apparel and Footwear Criterion Written report (PDF) recently ranked 37 of the globe's biggest fashion companies on a scale of 0 to 100 on their efforts to fight forced labour, with 100 representing the all-time practices.
The group identified allegations of forced labour in the supply bondage of 54 percent of companies it examined.
"What stood out to us is that the boilerplate score for the sector was 41 out of 100, which constitutes a significant failure to address risks," Felicitas Weber, project director at KnowTheChain, told Al Jazeera.
The study also found that the globe'due south largest luxury brands are among the worst offenders in addressing the worse forms of exploitation in their supply chains, with an average score of 31 out of 100.
French luxury goods company Kering (owner of the Alexander McQueen and Gucci labels) scored 41 out of 100, while LVMH (possessor of the Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton labels) scored 19 out of 100. Tapestry (possessor of the Motorbus and Kate Spade labels), assessed for the first time this year, scored 16 out of 100.
Kering, LVMH and Tapestry did not respond to Al Jazeera's requests for comment.
Italian luxury manner business firm Prada ranked at a mere 5 out of 100 on KnowTheChain's benchmark, and its score has worsened over time.
Only in a statement to Al Jazeera, Prada Grouping said it strives to push its standards higher and challenged KnowTheChain's methodology.
Prada claims KnowTheChain does not take into business relationship the fact that most of Prada's factories are located in Italy, which allows information technology to closely monitor and address whatsoever misconduct or violations.
While KnowTheChain's findings are striking, they aren't surprising to workers' rights advocates.
"Labour corruption is baked into the supply-chain model championed by apparel giants," Penelope Kyritsis, inquiry director at the Worker Rights Consortium, a labour rights monitoring arrangement, told Al Jazeera.
Past continually enervating shorter turnaround times and lower prices from their suppliers and fuelling competition amidst supplier factories, way and retail brands make information technology hard for factory owners to attach to labour laws and standards, she explained.
"This dynamic has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, when apparel brands sought to minimise their economic fallout by abruptly cancelling orders from their supplier factories, which led to mass layoffs, pushing workers towards the brink of destitution," Kyritsis said.
For case, in Bangladesh, the second-largest employer of garment workers after Cathay, more than one million garment workers – by and large women – were fired or temporarily let go when fashion brands cancelled orders during the height of last year's pandemic shutdowns, according to inquiry (PDF) conducted by Penn State University's Center for Global Workers' Rights.
Vulnerable migrants
While it is unclear exactly how many migrant workers and refugees are employed in the garment sector, they do make upwardly much of the workforce across all regions, KnowTheChain told Al Jazeera.
For case, garment factories in Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan heavily rely on workers from neighbouring countries, co-ordinate to the Clean Clothes Campaign.
Jordan's garment industry is estimated to employ most seventy,000 workers, 53,000 of whom are migrants, the IndustriALL Global Union found in 2019. And Brazil's Sao Paulo material sector is known to utilise an estimated 300,000 Bolivian workers, according to nongovernmental organisations cited in a written report by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
Migrants are often more than vulnerable to corruption and exploitation, every bit they are often employed nether informal agreements, are undocumented or lack adequate protection under the constabulary.
"Migrants sometimes have to pay up to a twelvemonth of their salary merely as a fee to get the job, so really [it's] quite extortionate," KnowTheChain's Weber explained. "Nosotros've seen more companies that reimburse these fees, only we need companies to step up significantly and not merely take a infant step each year."
Of the 28 retail and way companies disclosing migrant worker policies in the KnowTheChain report, just ii companies provided examples of practical changes they have to accost worker grievances. Those grievances can include withholding wages, abusive working and living weather condition, intimidation, sexual harassment and threats.
While the ability to organise and claiming exploitative working conditions is crucial, thousands of unionised garment workers were reportedly targeted for dismissal due to union membership and organising during the pandemic, according to KnowTheChain.
'Know and show' supply bondage
More broadly, companies in the industry need to be able to "know and show" their supply chains – and that means mapping and publishing the names of the suppliers they are working with at all levels, Weber said.
Exploitative working conditions thrive in countries where labour laws and enforcement are weak, simply many manner brands based in Europe and the United States continue to try and evade responsibility for what happens farther downwardly their supply chain, Chloe Cranston, business and human rights manager at Anti-Slavery International, told Al Jazeera.
Cranston cited the example of goods made using forced labour from members of the Uighur Muslim minority in China's Xinjiang region.
A contempo Amnesty International report documented the mass imprisonment and systemic torture of Uighur Muslims living in Red china, including through first-hand accounts. Some of those accounts detail forced labour and Uighurs being "required to live and piece of work in a factory".
"Almost the unabridged way industry is implicated in Uighur forced labour, through yarn or cotton sourcing, for example," Cranston said.
On Tuesday, the United States issued an updated business organization advisory warning companies doing business in Xinjiang that they faced a heightened risk of falling afoul of US law due to the "growing evidence" of forced labour in the region, as well as other human rights abuses and "intrusive" surveillance.
The administration of old US President Donald Trump banned all cotton products from Western China's Xinjiang region over allegations that they are made with forced labour from detained Uighur Muslims. The United states, Canada, European Spousal relationship and United Kingdom have likewise sanctioned Chinese nationals over the abuse allegations.
"We've seen some progress effectually this in the past year, yet the deplorable reality remains that the mode industry still has a long mode to go to ensure it is not complicit in the crimes against humanity suffered by Uighurs," Cranston said.
Fashion and retail companies accept significant corporate power, she stressed, and they have a responsibility to ensure that the way they piece of work with suppliers, trade unions and labourers allows for decent working conditions for people up and down their supply bondage – from those harvesting raw materials like cotton to those spinning them into fabric in factories.
"It shouldn't exist the burden of a consumer to attempt and guarantee a slavery-free purchase," Cranston said.
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