Fast Fashion and Trafficking: What's the Link?
New York Fashion Week began on September 8th. With it came encouragement to sport the latest trends and a myriad of conflicting messages about what is “in” and what is “out.” It’s fun to see the styles that come out of Fashion Week and try to create similar looks for our everyday use.
Unfortunately, most of us cannot afford the designer labels modeled at New York Fashion Week. And, even if we could, who is to say whether clothing made by those labels is ethically made?
Ethically made clothing is produced in a way that treats garment workers with dignity. Often, when we work to match the current season’s trends without paying close attention to the clothes we purchase, we are unknowingly contributing to the fast fashion industry. This inexpensive clothing is produced by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends, like those that will be revealed during New York Fashion Week. Perhaps the simplest way to produce fashionable and inexpensive clothing quickly is to make that clothing without paying garment workers a living wage -- thus, fast fashion is often “unethically made.”
On average, garment workers work 96 hours per week, often in unventilated spaces where they are forced to breathe in toxic substances. When garment workers fail to meet daily quotas, they may be denied breaks or forbidden from drinking water.
It may seem that this is happening far away, largely with respect to the hangers in your closet filled with “made in Bangladesh” labels. But the reality is that even garment workers in the United States are often not treated with dignity. A Los Angeles study showed that workers in the area have been subject to rodent-infested and dusty working conditions, frequently locked doors, 12-hour workdays, 6- or 7-day work weeks, and sexual harassment.
If garment workers are undocumented, they may work under threat of an employer reporting them to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) if they choose to report subpar labor conditions. Workers may also have used labor brokers which lead to debt bondage, a form of labor trafficking in which workers are required to pay fees to secure employment.
The story of one trafficking survivor, Flor Molina, illustrates the problem well: Molina took sewing classes in an effort to gain the skills to start her own business. A trafficker promised that she would have opportunities to make more money in the US. When she arrived, however, she was met with a large debt and a high-end dressmaking job where she worked 18-hour days and was forced to sleep on the factory floor with one other survivor. Dressember works to fight for the dignity of these workers and to end labor trafficking.
Photo by Gbenga Onalaja on Unsplash
So while it may seem that the latest fall colors (it looks like this year it will be yellow and gray) are just a fun addition to your wardrobe, the reality is that we should be critically evaluating the impact that the brands we love have on garment workers whose lives we value and respect.
Fast fashion and human trafficking are deeply intertwined. The link between fast fashion and trafficking is that trafficking is largely what allows fast fashion to be so affordable and immediate. In other words, labor trafficking is a driving factor in what allows our fast fashion to be so “fast.” Dressember is working to help consumers “break up with fast fashion.” What this means largely boils down to being more conscientious about the fashion choices we make. One great place to start is Dressember’s Ethical Fashion Directory, which provides a catalog of brands that empower rather than exploit their workers. By taking the first step of critically assessing the brands we purchase, we can help to eliminate the fast fashion and trafficking cycles that threaten and damage workers’ dignity and rights.
About the Author
Miranda Cecil is a second-year at Northeastern University School of Law. She graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2020 (go heels!) and shipped up to Boston. As a North Carolina transplant in New England, she loves exploring her new area on the weekends. In her free time, she enjoys cross-stitching, cycling, and reading. She hopes to use her legal degree and a passion for urban development to continue advocating for human trafficking survivors (and, despite the Boston winter, looks forward to the style challenge this December).