Bangladesh is still paying the price for these protests. In the aftermath, along with a constitutional crisis earlier in 2024, the country is struggling to convince Western customers that its supply chain is as stable as those of competing nations. Reuters recently reported that the country’s garment “exports to the US fell by 0.46% to $6.7 billion between January and November last year, while India’s exports rose 4.25% to $4.4 billion.”
The industry is also impacted by child labor and forced labor, the latter defined by the ILO as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.” The stats included in the United States Department of Labor’s annual report were grim: While labor exploitation happens in virtually every region of the world no matter the country’s income, the report added 37 new goods to the list that were previously in the clear, as well as four new countries. Of the 82 countries, a large swath (including Argentina, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, the list goes on alphabetically) engaged in labor exploitation within the garment industry or associated industries, like gold or cotton.
While the United States isn’t exactly included on the Department of Labor’s list of offenders, the report does admit to a whopping “88% increase in the number of children employed in violation of federal child labor laws” in the country since 2019. Anecdotally, the report mentions busting American poultry factories and sawmills for using child labor. What it doesn’t mention is the exploitation of models, including children, in American fashion.
How will policy changes impact workers?
Thanks to prodding from organizers, government officials have finally started to address the harms experienced by fashion industry workers. In 2021, for example, California passed the Garment Worker Protection Act, protecting these workers from wage theft and ensuring that they get paid an hourly wage versus payment for each item they produce. The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which takes effect in 2027, is aimed, among other goals, at protecting labor exploited in global supply chains.
Other promising legislation is underway to protect models. Led by Sara Ziff, who modeled for Gap and Chanel before becoming an organizer, Model Alliance helped push a landmark pro-labor bill that New York governor Kathy Hochul signed into law late last year. The bill protects models from the misuse of AI, allows models to directly access their contracts with clients, and guards against harassment and abuse, among other protections.
How does underregulation harm consumers?
According to December 2020 research from Science Feedback, a science education nonprofit, the fashion industry emits 3 to 10% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Climate change affects everyone on the planet, subjecting us to more extreme weather events, from heat waves and droughts to flooding. (It’s worth noting that the countries likely to feel the first and worst impacts of the crisis include those from which the world sources many of its garment workers. A 2022 article published by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Reuters highlighted that even with intermediate warming “Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka’s exposure to wildfires, floods, major storms, and also water shortages mean South Asia has 10 to 18% of GDP at risk, roughly treble that of North America and 10 times more than the least-affected region, Europe.”)
