Measuring Forced Labour in an Authoritarian Context. An Evaluation of ILO Third Party Monitoring in Uzbekistan The Government of Uzbekistan operates a system of forced labour which has been estimated to coerce approximately one million people involved into the cotton harvest. Following courageous reporting, activism, and whistleblowing, the Uzbek government has committed at the highest levels to eradicating forced and child labour from the cotton sector. One of the two determined annual reports that both measures incidences of forced and child labour in the cotton sector, and attempts to diagnose strengths and weaknesses in Uzbekistan’s reform effort is produced by the International Labour Organization (ILO) through its third-party monitoring unit stationed in Tashkent. Established through a Multi-Donor Trust Fund by the World Bank, with support from the European Union, the United States and Switzerland, the unit has produced three annual monitoring reports since 2015. Following serious criticism of the third-party monitoring methodology, ethicality and accuracy by civil society, the first author of this evaluation was invited by the ILO’s Chief Technical Adviser to review the 2017 cotton harvest report. To conduct the review, benchmarks drawn from the international methodological literature and the ILO’s own monitoring manual were employed. Once applied serious breaches were identified. A series of questions prompted by the review’s initial findings was sent to the ILO’s third-party monitoring unit for clarification. No response has been received. Among the greatest concerns raised during the review was a lack of explicit reference in the 2017 harvest report to the vulnerability of participants who may be victims of state-organised labour, the special sensitivities this prompts for research, or the complexities associated with conducting accurate fieldwork in a deeply authoritarian country where surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture, and repression are lived realities for citizens. Mehr Details
Toxic Tanneries – The health repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh Leather Workers in many leather tanneries in the Hazaribagh neighborhood of Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, including children as young as 11, become ill because of exposure to hazardous chemicals and are injured in horrific workplace accidents. The tanneries, which export hundreds of millions of dollars in leather for luxury goods throughout the world, spew pollutants into surrounding communities. Human Rights Watch documents an occupational health and safety crisis among tannery workers, both men and women, including skin diseases and respiratory illnesses caused by exposure to tanning chemicals, and limb amputations caused by accidents in dangerous tannery machinery. Mehr Details
ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines: Version 2 The purpose of the ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines (hereafter referred to as “WW Guidelines”) is to set a single globally unified expectation for sampling, testing and reporting of industrial wastewater and sludge resulting from wetprocessing, across the textile and leather industry. Separate wastewater guidelines are available for Man-Made Cellulosic Fibres (MMCF). Mehr Details
Leaving Traces - The hidden hazardous chemicals in outdoor gear - Greenpeace product test 2016 In this latest investigation Greenpeace tested a range of outdoor gear for hazardous per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFCs). The study reveals that not only outdoor clothing and footwear but also camping and hiking equipment such as backpacks, tents and sleeping bags contain chemicals that are hazardous to the environment and to human health. This follows an analysis conducted on items produced and sold by various outdoor brands, selected for testing by outdoor substances and Greenpeace supporters. Out of the 40 products that were tested, only four were found to be free from the per- and polyfluorinated chemicals that were checked, to the detection levels used. Editorial team: Miller, Simone; German summary entitled ‘Dangerous chemicals in outdoor equipment’ available. Mehr Details
The great green washing machine part 2: The Use and Misuse of Sustainability Metrics in Fashion This is the second part of the white paper: The Great Green Washing Machine. The first part ‘Back to The Roots Of Sustainability’ demonstrates that in fashion at the present time, sustainability is not properly defined, and the vital metric - impact on the multidimensionally poor - is not considered. Mehr Details
