“Stitched up” and “abandoned by fashion”: New Amnesty International reports reveal abuse in the garment industry

Two new reports by Amnesty International document widespread anti-union abuse in the garment industry, manifesting in abuses of workers’ rights, harassment and violence by employers.

The reports — ‘Stitched Up: Denial of Freedom of Association for Garment Workers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka’ and ‘Abandoned by Fashion: The urgent need for fashion brands to champion worker rights’ — reveal how governments, factories and global fashion brands are profiting from the continued repression of garment workers and abuse of their labour rights in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

“An unholy alliance of fashion brands, factory owners and the governments of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is propping up an industry known for its endemic human rights abuses. By failing to ensure that the right of garment workers to unionize and collectively bargain is respected, the industry has thrived for decades on the exploitation of a grossly underpaid, overworked and mostly female workforce,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

In all four countries, workers described a climate of fear in which supervisors and factory bosses frequently harassed, dismissed and threatened workers for belonging to or organizing a union, in a clear abuse of their right to freedom of association. The majority of the garment industry workforce in South Asia are women, who are often rural migrants or from marginalized castes. Despite their numbers, they are under-represented in factory management, which typically reflects the patriarchal system outside the factory, as well as existing class, ethnic, religious and caste discrimination.

As the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association summarized in his 2016 report, “Without assembly and association rights, workers have little leverage to change the conditions that entrench poverty, fuel inequality…”  

The lack of due diligence legislation means brands are not held to account for their supply chains, enabling an extractive and exploitative industry.  There is an urgent need for mandatory due diligence to ensure that brands hold factories throughout their global supply chain to account and crucially ensure remedy for workers who have been subjected to human rights abuses, as well as serve to prevent any future abuses. 

The reports make many key recommendations for both production states as well as companies and those countries with headquartered brands. 

In particular the reports calls for states to  

• implement and enforce new legislation that requires companies of all sizes and sectors, as well as investors and public procurement agencies have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harm in their operations and supply chains, including by undertaking robust and transparent human rights and environmental due diligence. 
• ensure that companies are required to conduct this due diligence with respect to all human rights risks and impacts, including using an intersectional lens that considers gender and racial justice among other hierarchies and addressing the barriers to accessing justice victims of corporate harm face – in particular those faced by women and girls.