Ethical Consumers Key To Cleaning Up India's Apparel Supply Chain: Experts

Apparel, Footwear, Fashion

Ethical Consumers Key To Cleaning Up India's Apparel Supply Chain: Experts

Global retailers' efforts to clean supply chains of slave labour and improve labour conditions will have little impact unless consumers in India, Asia's third largest economy, demand more ethically produced goods, industry experts said.

India is among the largest manufacturers of textiles and apparel in the world, supplying leading international brands. In and around the southern city of Bengaluru alone, there are some 1,200 garment factories making apparel for global brands.

It is estimated that the domestic market accounts for more than 40% of the industry's revenue. "The industry has the most invisible supply chain. It is also mostly unorganised, which makes it harder to map and regulate," said Mona Gupta, a senior official at India's Apparel Export Promotion Council.

"Domestic consumers should raise their voice. If they insist on buying only ethical products, that will bring pressure on manufacturers," she said at a panel discussion on trafficking and modern day slavery organised by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Asia Society in Mumbai.

Push, Pull Factors

Estimates of the number of people trapped in forced labour vary. The International Labour Organization says 21 million people are victims of forced labour globally, while the Global Slavery Index says there are 36 million slaves in the world, half of them in India. In India, legislation exists against bonded labor and child labor, but enforcement is weak.

"Unethical practices in the supply chain must be the responsibility of corporations, but corporations first need to accept the problem exists," said Dhananjay Tingal, executive director of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), which says it has freed more than 85,000 children from various industries.

Global apparel brands H&M, Inditex, C&A and PVH in January committed to improving the lives of workers in Bengaluru, after a report said labourers lived in appalling conditions and were denied decent wages and freedom of movement.

However, campaigners say the seasonal nature of work in India's textile industry, the advent of fast fashion and the competitiveness of the business have helped create conditions leading to the exploitation of workers. "There is child labour not just because of a supply-pull factor, but also a demand-push factor," Gupta said.

"The only way to resolve the issue is to sensitise everyone: businesses, workers and consumers. It can be done," she said.