Amnesty International on Thursday called on global textile companies and the governments of four Asian countries to take action to protect the rights of workers in the industry and ensure them fair wages.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) published two reports on Thursday. In it, she urgently calls on fashion brands that produce in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri Lanka to take measures to protect the rights of workers in their supply chains.
For the reports, Amnesty relies on almost 90 interviews from 20 factories in the four countries mentioned. The reports document “widespread violations of freedom of association in the garment industry.” According to the organization, these manifest themselves in the violation of employee rights as well as harassment and violence by employers.
“In many ways, the fashion industry is a model based on the exploitation of cheap labor,” Dominique Muller, textile industry researcher at Amnesty, told AFP. “We see that producing countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are somewhat forced to keep wages low and prevent unions because they want the brands to order from them.”
The textile sector accounts for up to 40 percent of manufacturing jobs in these countries. Yet, according to Amnesty, workers are “underpaid and overworked”, have no access to basic rights and are systematically deprived of their rights through informal and insecure contracts. The organization complains that “the garment industry has not adequately addressed the denial of these basic rights.”
Amnesty sent a questionnaire to 21 companies requesting information about their human rights policies, their monitoring and concrete measures on trade union freedom. However, there is “little evidence to determine whether human rights policies are being implemented at the factory level or not.”
“Companies must stop simply repeating their commitment to freedom of association,” demands Muller. “Instead, they should pursue an active sourcing strategy that rewards suppliers and countries that respect this freedom.”
The reports come as the European Union weakens a directive on social and environmental due diligence of large companies. In mid-November, MEPs agreed to undermine the main objectives of this text. They reduced the scope of the affected companies and eliminated some of their social and environmental commitments.
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