SDG 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Written by: Chemitei Janet, Africa Regional Coordinator @ Threading Change
30 June 2022
[8-minute read]
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and deepened the wage crisis for garment workers, leaving them with struggles to access adequate housing, healthcare and healthy nutritious food.
Globally, garment workers face wage theft, including more than $11 billion in the first year of the pandemic.
Fashion and SDG 10
This goal relates to SDG 9 by putting people and the planet over profit; big fashion brands should pay their workers a living wage and this can be done through reducing their clothing production which would allow the garment workers to make less clothes and earn better wages to sustain them. This way, profits from these brands and companies can be spread out throughout the entire supply chain.
The fashion industry relies on exploitation and is greed-driven. This industry is worth around $1.5 trillion dollars making it one of the most profitable industries globally. While garment workers are struggling to make ends meet and demanding for their rightful pay, big brand owners are busy topping the billionaires charts which; most of the owners being white men.
Fashion is a capitalist industry, relying on the exploitation of garment workers while the profit is reaped by the capitalists themselves. The garment workers produce mountains of clothes at the expense of their health, and with almost no wage compensation: fashion indeed is the child of capitalism. This system only works to reward the rich and successful. Capitalism urges you to constantly buy into what you don’t necessarily need, and feeds on the vulnerability of consumers to trends with cheap price tags, tricking you into thinking you need to be in sync with what the world is wearing.
This business model that keeps taking needs a constant system that is rooted in underpayments, and exploitation of labor laws. A lot of fashion brands outsource from companies overseas who produce their clothes and then ship them all over the world, for example using a factory in Bangladesh, or Ethiopia while the brand itself is based somewhere in Europe. Outsourcing can be traced back to the 1970s; importation of cheap clothing from developing countries where labor was cheap and more profitable for the garment industry so as to avoid high production rates in their own countries. For example 95% of American clothing in 1965 was produced locally in the US.
Women make up the majority of people working in the fashion industry, but they face inequity; they are underpaid, overworked, and even suffer abuse at the hands of their male managers and factory owners at work. Not only that, there is a great disparity of wealth between the women making clothing, and the big companies selling the clothes.It is only fair that these companies step up and bridge the gap to provide the workers a fair wage for them to fulfill their basic needs.
Inequality goes hand in hand with justice, and that includes racial equity which the fashion industry keeps exploiting especially since garment workers are mostly people of color. This inequality is enabled by colonialism in the industry. Diversity and inclusion especially in the fashion industry should not leave anyone behind, or exclude them- transparency is important for brands to be accountable across the supply chain, for a fair fashion system and one that is inclusive.
For people working in the fashion industry, reducing inequality means demanding and achieving living wages in the fashion supply chain. Most garment factories are located in countries with developing economies that have lower production costs and where labor rights are ignored making it easy for fashion companies to exploit the garment workers in favor of high profits. It is the responsibility of brands to ensure that the factory suppliers they are working with comply with the legally mandated wage for the garment workers, by paying prices for the services that are high enough to meet with the minimum wages of the particular countries, including overtime payments. Slowing overproduction and overconsumption will lead the way into reducing pollution, and use of clean energy and transportation in the fashion industry.
With overproduction and overconsumption comes a waste issue. Ever since the rise of fast fashion in the early to mid 2000s, so has the volume of clothes being thrown away increased. Textile waste export is tied to the history of colonizing practices: high-income nations exercise their privilege and power to attain their goals which disrupts ecosystems of the communities and economies where the wastes end up. Reducing inequality at the root requires addressing the impact that the fashion industry has on both people and the planet. Most clothes that cannot be consumed, or that are “donated” end up in countries like Kenya and Ghana, and ultimately to landfills.
If you missed our previous educational works on SDGs 1-9, check out our Instagram! Try searching the hashtag #ThreadingChangexSDGs to see all of our informative posts in one spot.
Sources
https://www.fashionrevolution.org/international-womens-day-fashion-is-womens-work/
https://remake.world/stories/what-is-waste-colonization/
About the Author:
Chemitei (she/her) is an Environmental Planning and Management graduate with a passion for sustainable fashion and landscape restoration. She is a climate and social justice activist from Kenya, and also advocates for mental health and body positivity. Her interest in fashion started when she was young watching runway shows and design competitions. Chemitei's commitment to sustainability began in 2017 when she watched the True Cost movie and even went ahead to contest for Miss Environment in her home county Elgeyo Marakwet and won. She expresses her love for fashion and the environment through actively volunteering in environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and GLFx Nairobi, and learning how she can impact change in her community. She incorporates her love for crochet in upcycling projects and loves storytelling through writing.environmentalism, and climate justice.
