Worker Wages

A new investigation has uncovered the hidden realities of Pakistan’s garment industry, exposing wage theft, forced overtime, and widespread informality across eight factories supplying European brands. Based on 126 worker interviews, the report challenges the effectiveness of social audits and highlights systemic exploitation in one of South Asia’s largest textile and apparel export hubs.

A new report from Public Eye lays the foundation for tackling the fashion industry's environmental and social challenges, as it calls for prioritising longevity, resource efficiency, and equity across the value chain, envisioning a fairer and more sustainable future.

Australia's 2024 Ethical Fashion Report has found that the average company score sits at only 31 out of 100, leaving significant room for improvement.

Non-compliance continues to be a bane with an overwhelming 93.8% of all verified assessments of facilities including at least one and in case of SMEs it went up by 7% in 2023, according to the 2023 Impact Report of the Social and Labour Convergence Program (SLCP).

Mauritius, the latest example of the use of forced labour within company supply chains, is proof that garment workers can experience unacceptable forms of exploitation that can only be countered through sustained labour organisation.

Leading apparel and footwear brands have scored the lowest when it comes to Purchasing Practices (12/100) and Remedy (7/100), in the latest annual KnowTheChain rankings.

Investigation into Lululemon exposes major shortcomings in legislation that experts say act as window dressing.

The RMG industry in Bangladesh has made remarkable progress since the Rana Plaza disaster a decade back. But, ground truths almost always are hard ones. And although much aid/relief has poured into the country since, it still leaves half of the survivors of that tragedy crying for justice. Clearly, something is amiss. A texfash.com analysis.

What is needed is an international watchdog that puts more pressure on retailers to treat their supply chains fairly is an essential part of the puzzle. Until a regime is in place with genuine teeth to ensure retailers toe the line, the modern slavery behind high-street fashions will only continue.

The Rana Plaza disaster of March 2013 exposed many faultlines in the fashion ecosystem. That tectonic day threw up a whole lot of issues that were furiously debated the world over. One critical issue was the seemingly confrontational interface between business and human rights. In this freewheeling conversation, Salil Tripathi, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) and Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, IHRB Research Fellow and Director at the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, talk about the lessons for business and human rights.