FASHION REVOLUTION | FASHION TRANSPARENCY INDEX 2021
TRANSPARENCY CASE STUDIES
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CASE STUDIES:
TRANSPARENCY IN ACTION
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) Amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, a report by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) analysed global apparel brands’ response to allegations of suppliers’ unfair dismissal of unionised workers, focusing on nine case studies. Research revealed more than 4,870 unionised garment workers were targeted for dismissal in nine garment factories across India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Cambodia, who supply major fashion brands. Whilst suppliers cited reduced orders and economic impacts from Covid-19 as a cause for these dismissals, workers reported feeling they were disproportionately targeted because of their union membership and organising efforts and that non-unionised workers had been hired as replacements. In some cases, workers reported having been dismissed after registering new
unions or having requested increased protections against Covid-19 at work. Publicly available supplier data enabled BHHRC to help resolve cases where workers had been unfairly dismissed by identifying and contacting the brands sourcing from these factories. At the time of publication of BHRRC’s report, six of the nine cases remain unresolved. However, an additional case was resolved in February 2021 following campaigning by an international coalition of workers’ rights groups and an agreement was signed between the Garment and Textile Workers Union and the supplier, reinstating all 1,257 workers. Thanks to publicly disclosed data, BHRRC was able to carry out research, report on the situation, catalyse support among the international community and hold those responsible to account.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Since early 2017, allegations have been made that the Chinese government is facilitating the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) estimates over one million people have been detained in detention camps designed to force minority groups to abandon their cultural traditions, which the Chinese government has characterised as “re-education centres”. Between 2017 and 2019, reports suggest that the statesponsored labour transfer programme has moved more than an estimated 80,000 Uyghur people out of XUAR to work in factories across China, though this figure is likely much higher. ASPI’s research relied heavily on transparency information such as publicly disclosed supplier lists, which ASPI used to establish that the forced labour of Uyghur people can be linked to 83 major global brands and retailers selling apparel, technology and automotives - many of whom are included in this Index.
ASPI was able to reach out to implicated brands to confirm their supplier details and alert them to their links to allegations of state-sponsored forced labour in the region. ASPI called for brands to conduct immediate and thorough investigations into allegations of forced labour in factories across the region and the country. Most companies implicated in the report issued a statement in response, with some verifying whether or not they source from facilities implicated in the use of Uyghur forced labour. Some brands committed to stop sourcing cotton from XUAR entirely as a result. In 2020 the U.S. Government issued sanctions on Chinese firms and in 2021 banned all cotton imports from XUAR. Scott Nova, the executive director of the Workers’ Rights Consortium, viewed the decision as a “high-decibel wake-up call to any brand that continues to deny the prevalence and problem of forced-labour produced cotton” and estimates that American brands import more than 1.5 billion garments using materials made in XUAR annually -- representing more than $20bn in retail sales. Without the public disclosure of supplier lists, it is difficult to prove the links between global brands and their suppliers in order to hold them accountable for their links to serious human rights violations.
