Uyghur Crisis: Why Is The Fashion Industry Repeatedly Implicated In Modern Slavery Scandals?

Via @fash_rev Instagram

While ending relationships with suppliers linked to Uyghur labour is necessary, fashion brands have already profited from this exploitation. If the industry wants to act on forced labour in its supply chains in the long term, it needs better transparency and more balanced power dynamics between brands and suppliers, says Clara Buckens

This July, over 180 human rights groups, trade unions and organisations formed a coalition to demand brands and governments cut ties with suppliers linked to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, due to mounting evidence that millions of Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims are being detained. Cotton farmed under forced labour in this region is ubiquitous, representing approximately 20% of global demand. H&M and other major brands are ending relationships with linked suppliers. 

Though the Uyghur crisis may have only entered mainstream news cycles this year, forced labour from this region has been reported in many fashion brands’ supply chains since 2018. 

On top of ongoing concerns about poor labour conditions the industry, this year, has seen Boohoo’s Leicester sweatshop scandal and major brands leaving millions of workers destitute by cancelling orders. This begs the question: why is the fashion industry so prone to modern slavery?

Firstly, garment production is labour intensive. This, compounded with unprecedented clothing consumption per capita, means the industry needs a huge workforce. Brands have pushed down their prices by outsourcing production to the Global South in regions where labour is cheap and plentiful, but where people are vulnerable.

“Poverty issues and a massive labour force that needs work, creates an environment for exploitation”, says Ilishio Lovejoy, Policy and Research Manager at Fashion Revolution, an NGO pushing for better accountability in the industry; “brands want to keep making profit year on year. In order to do that, in order to make a cheaper product they have to squeeze something, and that is often vulnerable people.”

However, most brands listed as using Uyghur forced labour products publish a supplier code of conduct which prohibits any form of slavery or wage theft. For example, Gap says: ‘the facility shall not use involuntary labour of any kind [and] shall pay wages and overtime premiums in compliance with all applicable laws’.

This inconsistency exists for two main reasons: “One is a lack of transparency, if you can clearly see everything that’s happening, you can identify and remediate exploitation” says Ilishio. The vast majority of brands neither map nor know where their raw materials, such as cotton, come from. Xinjiang cotton, which is cheap and good quality, therefore has flooded the market with little accountability for the conditions in which it was farmed. 

Her second point is crucial for long term improvement of garment production practices. “What you need as a brand— if you can’t monitor every worker, in every factory, in every country, every day—is genuine reliable partnerships, and they’re not breeding that very well”.

Brands hold significantly more power than their suppliers, both profiting from un(der)paid labour, but also policing it. While many have improved their labour policies, their purchasing practices haven’t followed suit: suppliers are pressured to keep production costs low and brands reserve the right to cancel orders, as we have seen this year.

The Chinese government’s failure to admit wrongdoing in the Uyghur crisis makes trade bans and corporate action like H&M’s powerful and necessary. However, systematically cutting ties with suppliers linked to labour rights infringements is not an adequate policy as it sends the false message that the supplier alone is responsible, not the brand. Purchasing practices and Human Rights Due Diligence should be improved in ways that balance the asymmetric power structures in their supply chains in order to achieve lasting and meaningful change.