The UK needs a Fashion Watchdog
Ahead of Black Friday, today the UK and Cambodian ReFashion team are in the UK Parliament presenting to MPs our newly published report “Building Forward Worse: How COVID-19 has accelerated the race to the bottom in the global garment industry”.
The UKRI GCRF-funded research shows the urgent need for a Fashion Watchdog. The COVID-19 crisis has exposed deep inequities and injustices in the global fashion industry, with UK brands and retailers cancelling orders with suppliers in developing countries, putting millions of women out of work worldwide. In Cambodia, where many of the UK’s clothes and shoes are made, garment workers who have now returned to factories are still facing rising debt, malnutrition, ill-health and stress, as a result.
The Fashion Watchdog would help stop the exploitation of workers in the garment industry and enable suppliers and workers to hold brands and retailers to account. The Fashion Supply Chain (Code and Adjudicator) Bill will have its second reading in the UK Parliament in Spring 2023.