Fashion isn’t doing enough to address forced labor, a new benchmark study reveals
Fashion isn’t doing enough to address forced labor, a new benchmark study reveals
No single company revealed a full list of sourcing countries for three or more raw materials designated as high risk for forced labor.
If the fashion industry was being graded on its efforts, as KnowTheChain did, it would receive a failing mark with an average of 21 out of 100 possible points.
For years, KnowTheChain, a partnership between the nonprofits Humanity United, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Verite and ESG analytics firm Morningstar Sustainalytics, has turned a gimlet eye to the world’s largest brands to suss out if their due diligence practices are resulting in meaningful change for workers.
2023’s batch of 65 big-league names, which range from luxury stalwarts like Prada (9 points) and Kering (23 points) to fast-fashion purveyors such as H&M Group (49 points) and Zara owner Inditex (38 points), is nearly double that of the 35 companies that KnowTheChain analyzed in 2021. But they also fared worse than the latter group, which gleaned an average of 41 points.
Critically, more than 20 percent of the 2024 cohort scored 5 points or less. Not only do brands remain “largely reactive” to human rights violations instead of embedding the due diligence practices meant to circumvent them, the report said, but they also “routinely” failed to provide or disclose remedy to victims of abuse—an “indictment,” it added, in a sector where such ethical breaches are “consistently uncovered.”
Is there some distinction between "forced labor" and "slavery"? Honest question.
10No. It's weasel wording.
One might argue that compensated forced labour isn't slavery. One could also argue that chattel slaves were compensated with accomodation. However if the labourer doesn't have the freedom to leave then they are a slave.
Confiscating passports and identity documents or binding visas to the "employer" are modern methods of restricting that freedom.
6
There's a high-fashion boutique in my city that has "saving the world through fashion" (or similar) displayed in its window.
I'm somewhat dubious of that claim.
9As long as we make money and don't see it first hand, who cares.
2
"Bird not doing enough to chop down tree where it has built its nest."
9I know its kinda bad to put the blame on the consumer but i personally know exactly one person irl that gives a fuck. Everyone else just buys whatever. People tend to not give a crap about literal slavery, even that of children. Only if its sexual and is talked about in a tabloid our emotions seems to work normally.
I am writing this on my pixel and the irony is not lost on me. A fucking shit world it is.
1