Fast Fashion: The Illusion of Choice for Modern-Day Slaves

Abstract

The twenty-first century is characterized by the advent of peak consumerism, where the preferences of the global consumer take precedence over everything. For the fashion industry, a trend of creating, using, and discarding fast and cheaply made clothes and accessories have been booming, characterized aptly as ‘fast fashion’. However, this trend comes at a severe cost, as the brunt of the same is being borne by millions of workers, primarily women and children, employed at the sweatshops of the developing South Asian nations. Working at deplorable conditions for pennies per hour, without any formal employment benefits in place, the basic human rights of these workers are being violated daily. While several international human rights documents emphasize that every nation must provide basic human rights to all of its people, that remains nothing but a fever dream for millions of such workers. Against this backdrop, this chapter provides a background of the garment sweatshop industry, followed by an analysis of the human rights violations therein. Then, it moves on to an exploration of the international legal instruments that can be utilized to counter this issue. Finally, it suggests some practical ways out for the nations most affected by the same.

1. Introduction

The ‘fast fashion’ industry is no healthier for the economy, environment, and people than its namesake, the fast-food industry. As the name itself suggests, fast fashion is geared towards quickly producing a huge quantity of clothing or accessories for the cheapest possible price. Not only would the production of these garments be cheap, but the turnaround time, shipping methods, etc., would also need to be efficient, so that they can reach from the manufacturing facility to the racks in clothing stores in the shortest possible time [1]. The primary purpose of fast fashion is to whet the consumers’ appetite, who have been inching towards buying the hot new look of the season or want to imitate the latest look of their favorite celebrity.

On the face of it, this may seem like a good thing. It is true that currently, the human race lives in a time of abundance—and one need not feel guilty for enjoying the pleasures of life. If the fashion industry is able to sustain this highly efficient and competitive pace and make the consumers happy, it could be seen as a good thing. However, while the manufacturers, retailers, and consumers may be happy with the current state of fast fashion, these trends come at a severe cost. The two primary areas where fast fashion is exceedingly dangerous are its environmental impacts and human rights violations. Essentially, while one counterpart of the society has been enjoying the newest clothing trends, the other has been sacrificing their life, safety, and health to make that happen.

Globalization has been one of the driving forces behind shaping the fashion industry to the state that it is in now. Along with the social, political, ideological, and economic changes of globalization, the continuous changes in consumer preferences have worked as the primary motivation behind the trend of fast fashion. In the history of human civilization, consumers have never had access to fashion commodities in such an efficient and cheap manner [2]. With almost every developed and developing nation developing shopping malls and other such multi-store shopping centers, a significant percentage of the same is dedicated to various clothing and accessories stores [3].

On a similar vein, the advent of the internet has also egged on the fast fashion industry—primarily in two ways. On the one hand, easy access to the internet has exacerbated the access and dependence of common people on ‘trends’. Previously, to keep updated with the latest fashion trends, one would have to subscribe to fashion magazines that would come out maybe once a month. However, now, the latest happenings of the fashion industry are accessible to everyone at the swipe of a finger—and they are ‘happening’ non-stop. Not only are the fast fashion brands themselves coming out with seasonal collections, look-books, etc., to hammer in the mind of the people that the items of the previous season are no longer ‘hot’, but there are several influencers, YouTubers, Tik-Tok-ers, etc., whose online persona are specifically geared towards guiding people’s fashion choices [4]. This trend of rapidly changing the new ‘in’ thing for the fashion industry, which is geared towards keeping people buying new things consistently, has made people view their clothing and accessories as disposable. They are now seen as items that are meant to be worn only a few times before discarding, in fact, many people tend to view them as one-use only. For that reason, there needs to be a cheap but constant supply of new items to ensure that the industry can function at its current pace.

As brands, even the most renowned ones, begin cutting corners to ensure such supply, the one area where the most cost-cutting happened, is at the production level. As the multinational brands could no longer afford to pay the minimum wages and other employment benefits that are mandatory in developed nations, they moved their manufacturing facilities to developing nations to take advantage of the lax legal regime and ensure cheap labor. Currently, almost all big-name fashion brands have their production facilities in developing nations, primarily in South Asian nations such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Thailand, or China, where the workers are made to work 12 hours a day or more, for less than a living wage [1]. This employment does not come with any formal employment benefits such as health insurance or severance pay either, and no care is taken to ensure that the job conditions do not hamper the health of the workers. Not only that, often, the brands prefer employing vulnerable groups of people, such as women, children, and disabled people, as they can be controlled more easily and their labor is available at an even cheaper price [1]. The human rights implications of such sweatshops are massive—yet, the workers choose to engage in the same because of the lack of employment alternatives, and the concerned governments choose to conveniently ignore them because of economic benefits.

2. Modern slavery: What does it look like?

If there is one word that can be utilized to describe the conditions of the fast fashion sweatshops, it would be ‘deplorable’. However, considering that the sweatshops are placed across different nations and regions, are under different legal and socio-political regimes, and deal with different brands and items of the fashion industry, no singular picture can be painted of the conditions of the facilities and of the people working there. However, an analysis of a few recent events that brought the reality of the situation in the limelight could describe how millions of workers worldwide are being the victims of modern slavery.

One of the earlier incidents that brought the real-life picture of these sweatshops into focus was the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. On 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza, one of the primary workshop sites in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where five garment company workshops were situated, collapsed—killing more than a thousand people and injuring more than two thousand [5]. What makes this event even more unfortunate is that this was not an unforeseeable accident. Massive foundational cracks in the buildings were discovered on the day before the accident, and most businesses in the building were closed immediately. However, the sweatshops ensured that their workers did not stop, as the supply chain needed to be intact. Even on the day of the accident, the workers were concerned about the safety of the building, as cracks ran through the walls, pillars, and floors, and did not want to enter the building till their jobs and pay were threatened by the management. At the time of the collapse, the building killed a thousand people in less than 2 minutes [6]. The official figure of death is also deceptive, as it does not include the people who died or committed suicide in the aftermath of the event, as a direct result of the same [7]. This incident sparked a great deal of scrutiny and debate in the international arena, with the parent organizations being enforced to create better labor conditions for the workers. However, these ‘betterments’ were mostly a charade, as they were often kept in place only during the days of the audit [7]. Otherwise, the low, low costs that were being offered by these organizations, could not be ensured.

Even apart from the actual incidents of death and injury, the attitude of degradation that runs rampant in these sweatshops is astonishing. In India, in a 2012 complaint made before the Human Rights Tribunal, it was revealed that the management regularly engages in physical and verbal abuse of the workers, with them regularly being called dogs and donkeys [8]. These instances, combined with unlivable low wages, were happening at workshops of brands of international repute—such as Gap and H&M. While providing evidence of their abuse, a worker who works for GAP at a factory in Bengaluru, Karnataka, stated that ‘We cannot eat nutritious food. We don’t have a good life, we live in pain for the rest of our life and die in pain … We can’t take breaks or drink water or go to the toilet’ [8]. Many of the workers complained that the long working hours and unhealthy working conditions had made them ill.

More recently, in 2020, the cosmetics brand owned by American reality star Kylie Jenner came into the limelight for refusing to pay its factory workers in Bangladesh, following a low-profit season during the Covid-19 pandemic [9]. The complaint was that it had not paid the wages of February and March 2020 even after months, citing a high amount of cancelation of orders and no sell-through of existing inventory. The claims were made against the company officially known as Global Grands Group, which listed Kendall + Kylie on its portfolio of affiliated brands. However, as soon as the accusation was made, Kendall + Kylie issued a statement that it was not associated with GBG, and its mention on the portfolio was also removed [10]. Still, the behavior of the brand in the aftermath of the incident clearly hints that its termination of connection with GBG was done in a haste, only after the dirty laundry came to light [11].

A 2021 investigation in the primary production facility of Shein, an e-commerce platform that is the go-to place for young people for new, trendy clothes at the lowest prices, revealed that the situation had not improved at all in the past few years. The workshop is situated in Guangzhou, China, where the investigation revealed the condition that thousands of workers work and live in. The production facility in question is so huge, that it has given rise to several workshops in the region, situated in ‘handshake buildings’—areas where the neighboring buildings almost touch each other. Inside these buildings which have long been identified as significant fire risks, the workers of Shein, many of whom do not have any formal employment contract, work till the dead of the night in the sweltering heat, producing and packing clothes for Shein [12]. Even though Shein is one of the fashion giants of the modern day, with it being the most downloaded Apple shopping application in the US in 2021, it has always kept its supply chain shrouded in a veil of mystery—perhaps to prevent being identified with its labor practices. In the UK, where making certain disclosures about labor conditions and supply chains are mandatory for every company, Shein has failed to make most of the necessary disclosures [12].

It was able to maintain this secrecy by refusing to establish any direct manufacturing centers which can be traced to the organization. While the workers know that they are producing their garments for Shein, their orders are received via another organization. As it was revealed, the workers often need to work 15-hour days to ensure that the supply chain remained unbroken. In fact, in many regions in China, the production facilities of Shein have given rise to ‘urban villages’, which were crowded and tightly packed neighborhoods populated almost exclusively by migrant workers who work in one or other of these workshops [12]. Considering that the workers have no direct contract with Shein, it is extremely convenient for the organization to ignore their rights. For example, even in the intense heat and humidity that these poorly ventilated factories have, no air conditioning facility is provided. The condition in these workshops is so deplorable, that ‘sweatshop’ is an accurate representation of the reality here, with workers themselves describing it as ‘climbing into the stove’, with a shift lasting for 12 hours or more [12]. However, thousands of workers still voluntarily opt for the same, due to the relatively attractive, yet still unsustainable, wages offered by Shein.

While these are only some of the incidents from the last few years that shed some light on this form of modern human slavery, there are hundreds of other reported incidents regarding the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions of these sweatshops that cause illness and death among the workers—and perhaps thousands more unreported. There can remain no question about it, that even though the workers ‘choose’ to work in these factories, this is not a real choice at all, as they are forced into it by their existing circumstances. Their socio-economic standard, lack of education, lack of employment opportunities in the concerned societies, etc., force them to sacrifice their life and health in order to ensure that their privileged counterpart can have access to the newest trends.

3. Human rights: A dream

Against this backdrop, it is an unquestionable fact that the workers at the sweatshops experience violations of several, if not most, of their human rights. Considering that these are rights that one has by virtue of their being “human”, under several legal instruments, they are considered to be the inviolable and basic elements of life for all people. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides, ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’ [13]. Thus, it is the responsibility of the respective national governments to ensure that all of its people have access to these building blocks of life so that they can flourish to their best possible selves. However, considering the social, political, and economic condition of the developing nations and the particular under privileged status of the workers, it is extremely easy for the fashion giants to exploit this section of the society to churn out more and more products at the lowest possible prices.

As mentioned previously, the precarious conditions of the garment sweatshops cause severe human rights violations in almost all spheres—the right to life and liberty, the right to be free from slavery, the right to be free from inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to social security, the right to just and favorable working conditions and pay, the right to rest and leisure, the right to health and security, etc. [13]. However, the rights that are most important in this context and violated in the gravest manner would be the right to a life with freedom from slavery, and the right to just and favorable working conditions as well as pay.

3.1 Life, free from slavery

Over and above all human rights, would perhaps be the right to life. Without the life of a person being secured under the legal regime, other rights, no matter how well protected, would continue to have no impact. For that reason, almost every international human rights document mentions the right to life as the very first human right available to everyone. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, under Article 3, mentions that ‘Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person’ [13]. The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, under Article 2, mentions that ‘Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law’ [14]. Similarly, the American Convention on Human Rights, under Article 4, mentions ‘Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life’ [15].

However, ‘life’ in itself is not an easily definable concept, and the problem remains as to where the right to life ends and where the other rights begin. For sure, a right to life could not simply mean the right to continued living without the basic elements of life being ensured first, as life demands a minimum quality of life as well. Thus, under the right to life, other related components of life such as the right to food, clothing, shelter, and safe living environment would also be included. Thus, the scope of interpretation of right to life varies greatly from nation to nation, with some countries, like India, choosing to interpret the right to live in a wide manner, as something beyond mere ‘animal existence’ [16], and some choosing to construe it in a narrow way. However, as the UDHR has identified, the right to life rarely works alone, as it must also be accompanied by the right to liberty—which signifies the right to not be controlled by another in an unauthorized and invasive manner. A similar sentiment is echoed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in both of which, Article 1 mentions that ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’ [17, 18]. This right to liberty or self-determination may only be actualized without their being any inordinate external influence, as may be seen in cases of slavery or even modern slavery.

The right to freedom from slavery is also explicitly provided under several international legal instruments, including the UDHR, which mentions under Article 4 that ‘No one shall be held in slavery or servitude’ [13]. Similarly, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, under Article 8, mentions ‘No one shall be held in slavery; slavery and the slave-trade in all their forms shall be prohibited. No one shall be held in servitude. No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour’ [17]. The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Article 4 is worded almost similarly, with it mentioning that ‘No one shall be held in slavery or servitude. No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour’ [14]. Article 6 of the American Convention on Human Rights echoes similar sentiments as well [15].

While it is true that the original intention behind drafting these provisions may have been otherwise, to prohibit the practice of actual slavery and trading of slaves that formally lasted till as recently as the nineteenth century, that does not make them inapplicable for situations of modern slavery such as the garment sweatshops. One might argue that the essential ingredient of slavery, the lack of freedom and choice, in absent in this case as the workers choose to work in these sweatshops and are free to leave any time they want. The workers are not owned by anyone as chattels. However, the reality of it is not as simple. While there may not be an official ‘owner’ of the workers forcing them to continue working, it can be argued that their socio-economic condition is doing the forcing, taking away their free choice to work or not work anywhere they want. Moreover, once they start working at these factories, it seems like the management is taking an inordinate amount of liberty with them—by violating their basic requirements such as health, safety, and sanitation, and threatening to fire them if they do not comply [12]. Thus, the element of free choice in terms of workplace and working environment is certainly absent in this case—making it a situation of nothing but servitude. Moreover, considering how the basic foundation of life are being denied by their employers, it is a blatant violation of their right to life as well.

3.2 Working conditions and wages

The other most important right of the workers that is being violated in this context is the right to just and fair working conditions as well as wages. This right is ensured in most international human rights documents to ensure that the workers, who may already be lower in the power hierarchy than the management, do not get exploited by their employers. Thus, this right encompasses factors such as healthy, safe, and sanitary working conditions, and fair wages for fair work.

Article 23 of the UDHR provides that:

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests’ [13].

A similar sentiment is echoed by Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states:

‘The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work which ensure, in particular:

1. Remuneration which provides all workers, as a minimum, with:

   1. Fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value without distinction of any kind, in particular women being guaranteed conditions of work not inferior to those enjoyed by men, with equal pay for equal work;

   2. A decent living for themselves and their families in accordance with the provisions of the present Covenant;

2. Safe and healthy working conditions;

3. Equal opportunity for everyone to be promoted in his employment to an appropriate higher level, subject to no considerations other than those of seniority and competence;

4. Rest, leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays’ [17].

Another key document in this context is the 1998 (amended in 2022) International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. It declares that all the members of the organization must respect, promote, and realize in good faith, some fundamental rights that include ‘the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour’, ‘the effective abolition of child labour’ and ‘a safe and healthy working environment’ [19].

This is an inherent right that is available to all workers and humans in general, and that is being grossly violated in this case. Firstly, the focus of the right, as envisaged in various international legal instruments, is ‘just and favourable conditions of work’ [13, 17]. However, there can be no semblance of justice and favorability in the sweatshops, where the workers are made to toil away for shifts of 12 hours or more, in unhealthy and unsafe working conditions. Surely, a workplace that is poorly ventilated, hazardous, does not allow adequate breaks to the employees and engages in other forms of abuse and can never be described as ‘just and favourable’. It also goes against the idea of a ‘safe and healthy’ working environment, as is mandated by several legal instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and ILO Declaration [17, 19]. Moreover, the UDHR also mentions that there must be protection against unemployment for all workers [13]. This is something that is completely absent in this case, as already mentioned, the organizations prefer to not even employ the workers under their brand name to skirt around any potential liability [12]. Not only is protection against unemployment not guaranteed in these facilities, but often, the employers actively threaten the job security of the workers if they dare to protest against the working conditions [6].

Nestled under the right to just and favorable working conditions is the right to fair wages, which the UDHR mentions as ‘just and favourable remuneration’ [13]. While the interpretation of what may be considered as ‘fair’ wages would be highly subjective and depending on the societal and economic context of the concerned nation, it would be safe to assume that it would include living wages not below the minimum wages fixed by the concerned nation, which would allow the worker to accommodate the basics of life with their wages. However, as the condition of many of these sweatshops show, they pay at the level of pennies per hour—with the motivation of shifting the workshops to developing nations being the easy availability of cheap labor. Often, the workers have to take second or third jobs over and above their already hectic hours at the workshop, to ensure that they and their families can have access to food and shelter [8]. Alternatively, the workers, often informally, engage their relatives and other family members, including children, in the sweatshops themselves, to ensure that the family can survive [12].

Thus, it is an unambiguous and apparent fact that there is a blatant violation of the right to just and favorable working conditions happening at the workshops. Surely, as fashion giants that are charging between tens to thousands of dollars for each item, corporations can afford to ensure humane working conditions and living wages for all their workers. Establishing their manufacturing operations in developing nations is not an illegal or unethical practice in itself, as that will keep their costs low, as long as they maintain a basic standard of working conditions and wages for their workers. By not providing the same, they might be making marginally better profits, but at a significant cost to the life and health of thousands of workers.

4. Conclusion and ways forward

Thus, as the discussion shows, there is no doubt that the fast fashion industry is illegal, unethical, and unsustainable across various fronts. Over and above the environmental and other concerns, it is a practice that is extremely harmful for the workers on whose backs the industry stands, as they are forced to work inhumanly long hours in uncomfortable and unhealthy working environments, for wages that do not allow them to break free out of the cycle of poverty. Among other basic human rights, the right to life and the right to just and favorable working conditions are being blatantly violated for these workers. The competitive forces in the market may have allowed it to survive and thrive, but the situation is such that the global community can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the same. The demand of consumers for the next hottest trend cannot come at ‘the cost of the life and health of vulnerable communities in developing nations’.

However, the fact remains that in spite of the scale and continued existence of the problem, the international community seems to be strangely apathetic to the same. When an incident like the Rana Plaza collapse or the wage debacle for Kendall + Kylie happens, there is a temporary uproar and a call to boycott the concerned brands, but this ‘revolution’ seems to be very transient and easily whetted by the brands by the mere appearance of a solution [7, 11]. Without a strong and consistent demand from the consumer base, the practices of the concerned brands are not likely to change in any way. As long as there is a considerable amount of demand in the market for their products, they will find ways to flout labor laws and ethics and engage in exploitation of vulnerable communities. If one nation comes up with stronger laws and policies that hamper such practices, they will simply move their operations elsewhere, to a nation which cannot afford to do so. Thus, the ultimate call for change against fast fashion and the modern servitude associated with the same needs to come from the consumer base itself so that these fashion giants are forced to protect the life and health of their workers or shut down shop.