This briefing highlights the responsibilities of fashion companies in relation to
the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United
Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework (UN Guiding Principles), and
assesses the key ways in which fashion companies compound the failure of states
and factory employers to protect workers and respect freedom of association.
In this briefing, Amnesty International analyses the areas where fashion
companies can work harder to promote freedom of association and decent
working conditions across their supply chain in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan
and Sri Lanka. We identify how the current model of complex supply chains
and privatized auditing in the industry diffuses responsibility and places a low
value on the labour of the predominantly female garment workers, solidifying an
exploitative business model which fashion companies need to address at its core.
We make recommendations for how these companies can play a much larger role
in promoting freedom of association for workers in their supply chain.
This briefing is designed to be read alongside Amnesty International’s Stitched
Up: Denial of Freedom of Association for Garment Workers in Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka which looks in more detail at the human rights violations
in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and the role of states and
employers (supplier factories).