Femnet e.V.

This research report presents the findings of a survey of 396 garment workers across 158 factories in nine countries, undertaken between August and September 2020. It presents new data about how garment workers’ food security—and linked dynamics of employment status and income—has deteriorated amidst the pandemic. Workers from our sample reported making clothes for over 100 apparel brands and retailers; the brands and retailers that were identified by survey respondents with the most frequency were: adidas, Gap, H&M, Nike, The Children’s Place, PVH, Gildan, Walmart, JCPenney, and Express.

Our data reveal an alarming pattern: garment workers’ declining incomes are leading to widespread hunger among workers and their families, as they are increasingly unable to obtain adequate food and nutrition. These dynamics are a direct result of apparel brands’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the long-term trend of low wages for garment workers in brands’ supply chains, which has left workers unprotected.

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This publication explores the implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) on the future of jobs, skills, and training in Southeast Asia, particularly for high growth industries in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. In Cambodia the garment industry is highlighted which should aim to depend less on low-cost production by moving toward production with higher value added, and that 4IR technologies could facilitate this transition.

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The apparel export industry in Ethiopia began modestly in the 2000s, but increased significantly by the mid-2010s and will continue to do so in the coming years, positioning Ethiopia to be an important supplier country in the globalized apparel industry.

This paper provides an overview of the emergence and evolution of the apparel export sector in Ethiopia. It argues that the EPRDF government’s pro-active industrial policy played an important role in the development of the sector. While foreign firms are an important driver behind the growth of apparel exports, there are also locally owned firms exporting apparel, which makes Ethiopia distinct from most other Sub-Saharan African apparel exporter countries. Ethiopian-owned apparel firms exhibit diverse ownership patterns, including state-owned, party-owned, and private sector-owned firms. The first phase of industrial policy particularly focused on incentivizing local investment in apparel production for export while later phases of industrial policy shifted the focus to attracting foreign direct investment, in order to boost exports and generate employment more quickly as well as bring knowledge and global networks into the country. Despite the focus on exports, the EPRDF government simultaneously has pursued import-substitution policies in the textile and apparel sector, which has helped the development of locally owned apparel firms by subsidizing the cost of learning to export as well as building a national supply chain from cotton to textile to apparel. The challenges for the government’s industrial policy approach is to retain the focus on local firms given their important role in productive transformation and to ensure incentives and support for local firms to export, and through this to increase their capabilities and value added, despite the existence of a protected domestic market.

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The time has come to transition to a textile system that delivers better economic, societal, and environmental outcomes. The report A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future outlines a vision and sets out ambitions and actions – based on the principles of a circular economy – to design out negative impacts and capture a USD 500 billion economic opportunity by truly transforming the way clothes are designed, sold, and used.

Beyond laudable ongoing efforts, a new system for the textiles economy is needed and this report proposes a vision aligned with circular economy principles. In such a model, clothes, fabric, and fibres re-enter the economy after use and never end up as waste. Achieving a new textiles economy will demand unprecedented levels of alignment. A system-level change approach is required and one which will capture the opportunities missed by the current linear textiles system.

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Fast-Fashion-Marken reagieren ganz kurzfristig auf neue Trends, bringen fast wöchentlich neue Kollektionen auf den Markt und das zu absoluten Niedrigpreisen. Spätestens seit dem Einsturz des Rana-Plaza-Fabrikgebäudes in Bangladesch 2013 steht dieses Wirtschaftsmodell in der Kritik, weil es den Preis- und Zeitdruck in der Lieferkette weitergibt – bis zu den Arbeiter*innen, die die Mode unter menschenunwürdigen Bedingungen fertigen.

Die CIR zieht in diesem Dossier nun eine ausführliche Bilanz über die ökologischen und sozialen Folgen der Fast-Fashion-Industrie und beleuchtet besonderes die Verantwortung der Marken.

Teil 1 – Arbeitsbedingungen untersucht konkret in zehn Textilfabriken in Sri Lanka, unter welchen Bedingungen Fast Fashion für Primark und C&A produziert wird.

Teil 2 – Einkaufspraktiken gibt Aufschluss darüber, wie die Fast-Fashion-Marken ihre Produkte beschaffen und mit ihrem Einkaufsverhalten für unwürdige Arbeitsbedingungen und Ressourcenverschwendung sorgen – und was sie ändern müssen, um ihrer Verantwortung gerecht zu werden.

Teil 3 – Die Folgen in Zahlen bietet in vielen Infografiken eine Übersicht über das verheerende Ausmaß menschlicher und ökologischer Ressourcen, die die Fashion-Industrie jährlich verschlingt.

Alle Grafiken der Studie sind unter der CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 Lizenz frei verfügbar und können hier heruntergeladen werden: PDF (für Druck) | PNG (für web)

Außerdem enthält das Dossier eine Reihe von Handlungsmöglichkeiten für Bürger*innen und Forderungen an die Fast-Fashion-Unternehmen.

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