Governments, factories and global fashion brands are profiting from the continued repression of garment workers and abuse of their labour rights in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Amnesty International said in two reports released on Thursday.
“An unholy alliance of fashion brands, factory owners and the governments of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is propping up an industry known for its endemic human rights abuses,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“By failing to ensure that the right of garment workers to unionize and collectively bargain is respected, the industry has thrived for decades on the exploitation of a grossly underpaid, overworked and mostly female workforce.”
The two reports — ‘Stitched Up: Denial of Freedom of Association for Garment Workers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka’ and ‘Abandoned by Fashion: The urgent need for fashion brands to champion worker rights’ — document widespread anti-union abuse in the garment industry, manifesting in abuses of workers’ rights, harassment and violence by employers.
The two reports are based on research conducted by Amnesty International between September 2023 and August 2024, which included 88 interviews across 20 factories in the four countries.
“This is an indictment of the entire business model of the garment industry which sacrifices the rights of garment workers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the relentless pursuit of profits for the shareholders of largely western fashion companies.”
Amnesty International also sent a survey in November 2023 to 21 major brands and retailers in nine countries, including Germany, Denmark, Japan, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA, Spain and China, requesting information about their human rights policies, monitoring and concrete actions related to freedom of association, gender equality and purchasing practices.
Adidas, ASOS, Fast Retailing, Inditex, Otto Group and Primark provided full responses. Many others replied with partial information, including M&S and Walmart, while some failed to provide information, including Boohoo, H&M, Desigual, Next and Gap.
In all four countries, garment workers said the threat of repercussions from employers prevented them from joining a union. All union organisers interviewed by Amnesty International described a climate of fear in which supervisors and factory bosses frequently harassed, dismissed and threatened workers for belonging to or organising a union, in a clear abuse of their right to freedom of association.
In India, vast numbers of home workers in the garment industry, who work outside the factory on embroidery or finishing garments, are not recognised as employees under the country’s labour laws and thus are not eligible for pensions, other employment-related social protection benefits, or union membership.
The majority of the garment industry workforce in South Asia is women, who are often rural migrants or from marginalised castes. Despite their numbers, they are under-represented in factory management, which typically reflects the patriarchal system outside the factory, as well as existing class, ethnic, religious and caste discrimination.
Female garment workers report being routinely harassed, attacked, and abused physically or sexually in the workplace. Yet they rarely get justice. The lack of effective, independent mechanisms to hear their grievances in male-led factories, combined with state-sponsored restrictions on organising and employers’ threats against workers unionising, means their suffering continues.
“I was touched physically and abused verbally. No one in management would listen to my complaints then I asked other women to organize. I was threatened with dismissal many times,” a union organiser from Pakistan told Amnesty International.
