Clothing & Human Rights
“SOS! SOS! SOS! We are prisoners at Xiangnan jail in Hubei, China. For a long
time, we have been producing clothing for export. We work for 15 hours each day.
What we eat is even worse than food for pigs and dogs. The work we do is similar to
(the hard work) that oxes and horses do. We urge the international community to
denounce China for this inhumane act”
- A woman in Belfast found this note in a pair of trousers she bought at Primark along with an identity card of the prisoner.
Millions of tonnes of clothes end up in landfill every year—it’s one of the fastest-growing categories of waste in the world. How can the fashion industry continue to grow while addressing the environmental need for people to buy fewer clothes?
The term “fast-fashion” refers to the shift in the fashion industry that has resulted in faster production with lower costs. At first glance, this appears to be an extremely beneficial change, especially for the general consumer. We can buy more clothes and spend less money in the process. However, it is important that we take time to ask how it is possible to the industry to have changed the way that it did. What does it really cost?
Do you know where your clothes come from? The apparel industry is one of the biggest violators of both the environment and human rights. In this compelling and information-packed talk, co-founder of Zady Maxine Bédat shows how you can take back the power of your wardrobe, and feel better in (and better about) your clothes.
The Problem of Fast Fashion
Since the supply chain revolution of the 1990s, the fashion industry has reached a high point of rapidly switching seasons, presenting more than forty collections annually to consumers. The rapid switch of seasons has caused for ‘sweatshop’ factories in which employees work from 7 a.m. till 6 p.m. without being compensated for overtime working hours. Fashion brands have a Corporate Social Responsibility to ensure that there is equal treatment along the supply chain. Unfortunately companies are often not socially responsible, and will exhaust garment factory workers in order to gain more profit at a fast pace. By outsourcing supply chain factories, numerous labour rights violations in developing countries are occurring.
The International Labour Organisation has highlighted eight fundamental labour standards which are;
1. Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87)
2. Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98)
3. Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)
4. Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105)
5. Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138)
6. Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182)
7. Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100)
8. Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111)
However these rules are never respected in the fashion factories, Why?
The problem is caused by a number of factors, ranging from loopholes in the national laws, to failures in compliance by the government, retailers and factories, to the overall culture of consumerism and capitalism. But the crux of the problem is the deeply rooted capitalist mindset that prioritizes profit above everything else, including human rights and human dignity. When companies’ major focus is how to maximize profits, sustainability is often pushed aside. They try their best to eliminate anything that decreases profit margins. Workers become disposable, just like the clothes they sell at their stores.
Although the socioeconomic and political context will necessarily differ in each country, they are all developing countries and the common human rights issues found across garment factories can be surmised as an aggregate of poor labour laws and restrictions on collective action. The term human rights is used in this essay in a Western liberal sense to indicate fundamental moral rights attributed to humanity, and recognised by some international legal instrument.
Supply Chain
We are increasingly disconnected from the people who make our clothing as 97% of items are now made overseas. There are roughly 40 million garment workers in the world today; many of whom do not share the same rights or protections that many people in the West do.
The garment and footwear industry stretches around the world. Clothes and shoes sold in stores in the US, Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world typically travel across the globe. They are cut and stitched in factories in Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, or other regions.
China, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam are among some of the major garment-exporting countries in Asia.
For the fast fashion business model to work, it requires a shortened supply chain and direct control over critical elements including raw material supply, design, production and logistics. This vertically integrated supply chain structure results in quick turnaround time, greater flexibility, quality assurance, visibility and process control and results in less supply chain risk.
Labour regulations
The right to a living wage, allowing the worker and his family to meet basic needs, is a human right. However, garment workers work for long hours and are often paid low wages that just meet the legal minimum, which is far below the living wage.
NGOs confirm this to be the case in many countries including Bangladesh and Cambodia.
Despite factories alleging that all overtime work is voluntary, in reality workers are forced to work overtime, often exceeding the legal working limits and with little or no compensation, contrary to the ICESCR.
Threats commonly used by factory managers demanding overtime work include dismissals and wage deductions.
A report found that 94% of Cambodian factories investigated violated overtime regulations, and that a factory dismissed 40 workers for refusing to do overtime work.
In another factory in Bangladesh, workers were beaten by managers for failing to meet unreasonable production targets.
Beyond the crumbling walls of sweatshops we find out the true cost of fashion. It’s April 23rd 2013, a busy commercial building in Dhaka, Bangladesh towers over thousands of workers, many of them children. As they toil away in a cramped sweatshop the force of the eight-storey building collapses on to them, killing more than a 1,000 people and permanently disfiguring a further 2,500. It emerges that this building had been condemned and not fit for purpose, yet many workers were caged for 14-hours a day with no escape.This was not just an unfortunate circumstance but one that could easily have been prevented.
Discrimination
Women make up the majority of the workforce in the garment industry in most countries and, accordingly, are the group most affected by its human rights impacts. The profound discrimination that women face in garment producing countries makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
The depth and extent of sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the garment industry is rarely acknowledged. A non-representative survey found that roughly 14% of women garment workers in Bangalore had been sexually harassed or raped. 60% reported having been intimidated or threatened with violence, while between 40-50% had experienced humiliation and verbal abuse.
No one wants to support child, forced or sweatshop labour. Yet, how many of us actually know how and where our clothing is made? Let's use our buying power and our voices to change the direction the fashion and clothing industry is taking the world, and help end exploitation.
Child Labour
Child labour remains a serious problem in the garment industry. While governments and corporations tend to deny the existence of child labour in registered garment factories, research suggests otherwise. Estimates suggest that about 16.7 million children between the age of 5 and 17 work in South Asia, and that approximately 10.3 million of them are under 15. The dire working conditions in the garment industry have a disproportionately higher impact on children’s development and health
Accident
H&M, the largest buyer of garments from Bangladesh, is “dramatically behind schedule” on correcting fire and safety hazards in the factories it sources from, according to a study released October 1st by the Clean Clothes Campaign, in collaboration with several labor groups. Many of those delayed improvements are a serious threat to worker safety.
Rana Plaza
On April 24, 2013, the eight-story Rana Plaza came crashing down. The building, in the Savar area outside Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, contained five garment factories on its upper floors. These supplied clothes to well-known fashion brands around the world. A government inspector had ordered the Rana Plaza’s evacuation the previous day after large cracks had appeared in the walls. But on the morning of the collapse, factory managers persuaded and cajoled workers to return, telling them it was safe. In some cases managers threatened them with dismissal if they did not comply. Shortly afterwards, Savar was affected by a power cut. Once the Rana Plaza’s electrical generators were switched on, the building started to shake and then collapsed. More than 1,100 people were killed and over 2000 were grievously injured.
Serious industrial accidents remain common. Just nine months ago, a boiler exploded in another Bangladeshi factory, killing 13 and injuring 50 others.
A photojournalist who covered last year's deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh draws connections to New York from clothing labels he found in the rubble.
Beauty Products
An investigation was done in order to have a closer look at beauty products and their material sources. They looked at five-subcategories, face cream, foundation, mascara, blush and bronzer, and lipstick. They analyzed the ingredient lists of 25 products, running those raw ingredients through the company’s database. Commodities and extracts made up 30 percent of the total ingredients.
The results were pretty concerning. Rated on a 0 to 10 scale, with 10 being low risk and zero being extreme risk, about half of the ingredients earned a high-risk rating in the 3.8 to 5 range. The report’s authors found “there was at least one high-risk commodity in each product’s ingredient list.”
On this episode of Shady, our host, Lexy Lebsack explores the unethically sourced ingredient that's in almost all makeup products. She travels to the mica mines in India to uncover the truth about child labor rings behind this mineral. Watch Shady to see what really goes into making your makeup!
One big ingredient of concern is cocoa, which shows up as cocoa seed butter or cocoa fruit powder on cosmetics ingredient lists. In two of its primary countries of origin, Ghana and Ivory Coast, there is a ton of social risk, the most prevalent factor is child labor.
Child labor has also been identified in the farming and production of shea butter, vanilla, copper, and silk “in the last five years in at least one of their major producing countries,” the report noted.
Carnauba and carnellia wax, derived from a palm tree and a shrub, respectively, pop up in many beauty products, including lipstick and mascara.
Some mined ingredients, like mica, are associated with child labor and what the report referred to as “forced labor.” Mica, an ingredient that adds sparkle to makeup, was present in 100 percent of the blush and bronzers, 60 percent of the foundations and lipsticks, and 40 percent of the mascaras that the group assessed.
Mica is a shiny mineral that’s all the rage in modern-day makeup, helping to give beauty products a bright gleam and natural-looking glow. This beauty, however, comes at a price that most are unaware of. Those who pay it are the poorest and most vulnerable. RT Doc visits India’s illegal mica mines where child labor is rife.
Solutions
Transparency
Transparency can ensure identification of global apparel companies whose branded products are made in factories where bosses abuse workers’ rights. Garment workers, unions, and nongovernmental organizations can call on these apparel companies to take steps to ensure that abuses stop and workers get remedies.
Publishing supply chain information builds the trust of workers, consumers, labor advocates, and investors, and sends a strong message that the apparel company does not fear being held accountable when labor rights abuses are found in its supply chain. It makes a company’s assertion that it is concerned about labor practices in its supplier factories more credible.
At least 17 leading companies have committed to publishing all the information sought in the pledge. Another 18 companies, though falling short of pledge standards, committed, for the first time, to publishing their supplier factory information.
Today, a number of leading companies, including Adidas, ASOS, Benetton, C&A, Esprit, Gap Inc., H&M, Hugo Boss, Levi’s, Marks and Spencer, New Balance, Nike, Patagonia, Primark, and Puma, have disclosed at least the names and addresses of their supplier factories.
But a vast majority of the industry, including big companies like Walmart—which co-founded the Sustainable Apparel Coalition—and other fast-fashion leaders like Inditex (owns Zara), Mango, Desigual, Urban Outfitters, and Forever 21 are among those that still do not publicly disclose which factories produce their branded clothes.
The more supply chain data is publicly available, the more likely it is that abusive conditions will be reported—whether publicly or to the brands whose supply chains are implicated—and the more likely it becomes that problems can be solved.
This egregiousness has to end. The ultimate question then is how? A collaboration between consumers, governments and NGOs to continue to fight for the rights of those at the bottom of the heap.
As consumers, we need to be more responsible and think more critically in regards to our decision to purchase these items from fast-fashion brands.
Choose Ethical Brands
There are different ways to produce ethical fashion, and according to the Ethical Fashion Forum, they fall into three categories, social, environmental and commercial, specifically tackling these issues:
Countering fast, cheap fashion and damaging patterns of fashion consumption
Defending fair wages, working conditions and workers’ rights, and supporting sustainable livelihoods
Addressing toxic pesticide and chemical use, using and/or developing eco- friendly fabrics and components
Minimising water use
Recycling and addressing energy efficiency and waste
Developing or promoting sustainability standards for fashion
Providing resources, training and/or awareness raising initiatives
Protecting animal rights
Ethical brands list:
KUYICHI
Teym
Filippa K.
Patagonia
GOAT.
Kings of Indigo
Maium
Matt & Nat
Mud Jeans
MYOMY
Nudie Jeans
O my bag
People Tree
Rhumaa
Studio JUX
TOMS
Veja
Wunderwerk
YUNIT
Fjäll Räven
Uniforms for the Dedicated
What do you do regarding making more sustainable clothing choices? By tagging us with #theconsciouschallenge you can share your ideas!
Want to contribute to our Ecological Footprint Bible? Submit us your scientific articles! Mail us at info@theconsciouschallenge.org
Sources:
https://www.racked.com/2018/6/22/17492838/human-rights-sustainability-cosmetics-supply-chain
https://www.dw.com/en/the-hidden-human-cost-of-fast-fashion/a-46577624
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/the-human-cost-of-fast-fashion-is-still-too-high-20180423-p4zb64.html
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/02/when-clothing-labels-are-matter-life-or-death
https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/04/22/whoever-raises-their-head-suffers-most/workers-rights-bangladeshs-garment
https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/04/20/follow-thread/need-supply-chain-transparency-garment
https://www.hrlc.org.au/opinion/2018/3/28/the-human-cost-of-fast-fashion-is-still-too-highand-footwear-industry
https://www.hrlc.org.au/opinion/2018/3/28/the-human-cost-of-fast-fashion-is-still-too-high
https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/human-rights/
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/05/female-garment-workers-gap-hm-south-asia
https://cdn.businessoffashion.com/reports/The_State_of_Fashion_2018_v2.pdf
https://quantis-intl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/measuringfashion_globalimpactstudy_full-report_quantis_cwf_2018a.pdf
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-clothing-industry-is-set-to-consume-a-quarter-of-the-global-carbon-supply-by-2050/
https://www.ekoenergy.org/how-polluting-is-the-fashion-industry/
https://sharecloth.com/blog/reports/apparel-overproduction
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544218311939
https://www.ecohz.com/renewable-energy-solutions/guarantees-of-origin/
https://www.imvoconvenanten.nl/garments-textile/betrokkenen