Fashion of Asia 2024

 

In addition to its environmental impacts, fast fashion tends to exploit the workers responsible for its production. Most clothing production is done in the Global South, including postcolonial countries in Africa, Asia, and , where laborers have few protections against long hours and unfair wages. Many work 16 hours every day, make very little money, and face retaliation for refusing to work overtime. Garment workers also labor in unsafe conditions, including windowless spaces, dangerously high temperatures, violent managers, and harmful chemical exposure. Perhaps the most famous event illustrating the poor conditions of garment workers was the Rana Plaza tragedy. In 2013 an eight-story building that housed several garment factories in Savar, collapsed and killed some 1,100 laborers and injured thousands more. Factory owners had ignored warnings not to use the building when cracks were discovered a day earlier. Because the supply chain is incredibly complex, retailers are mostly unfamiliar with the sourcing and production of their clothing and are therefore unaware of the conditions workers face to make their products.