Flicking through fashion posts on Instagram or looking at the latest reports about the industry, you'd think this is the happiest of times in the entire world. Glamorous runway shows are back, celebrities are once again sitting in the front row, designers are posting about their inspirations and influencers are taking selfies of themselves outside venues in borrowed clothes. Everything is more or less back to a pre-Covid dimension.
Yet, in this fragile post-pandemic world, things aren't going that well: while the Russian occupation is continuing in Ukraine, leaving death and destruction behind, another country – Sri Lanka – is facing a major crisis.
A country of 22 million people, Sri Lanka is going through a public debt crisis – the worst since independence in 1948 – plus it is facing shortages (of fuel, food, gas, medicines…) caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The United Nations reported in a survey that 70% of Sri Lankan households cut back on food consumption, with food price inflation running at around 57 percent.
The culmination of years of corruption and poor policy decisions, the economic crisis and political unrest in Sri Lanka intensified in the first quarter of this year. The country defaulted to pay its international liability and, in May, protests brought down the government of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (at the moment Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is leading the caretaker government).
In the meantime, the crisis continues with civilians enduring power cuts and days-long lines for fuel. To keep people off the streets schools and offices were closed, while, amid the chaos, even essential workers – among them doctors and medical staff – are unable to carry on with their jobs.
While the crisis is largely self-inflicted, the situation has worsened as the war in Ukraine has pushed global food and energy prices up. Sri Lanka may not be the main focus of European countries at the moment, but it shouldn't be forgotten as the global shortage of food currently being experienced there and the dire consequences of the chokehold on exports of grain from Ukraine may extend to other countries in a few months' time.
In much the same way, the fashion industry shouldn't close its eyes to the current political, financial and social situation of the country as clothing is the second largest source of foreign exchange for the Sri Lankan economy. The garment industry in Sri Lanka employs indeed 350,000 workers directly and 700,000 indirectly.
Just before the crisis hit the country, the sector had started rebounding after the pandemic. The economic crisis already had an impact on garment exports from the country in April 2022, there was indeed a drop of over five per cent compared to exports of $430,282 million in the previous month (and compared to $456.846 million of exports in November and $483.478 million in December 2021).
Higher costs for raw materials, unprecedented blackouts and power outages meant that production schedules got interrupted and orders were cancelled, diesel shortages also made it difficult to switch the company's machines and steam rollers and some factories started closing down.
Other garment factories in Sri Lanka also risk of closing down as they are losing US-based customers for other reasons, such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) that restricts imports of products using Xinjiang cotton (over forced labour allegations), that went into force in June.
At the moment, female garment workers – often exploited, mistreated and derisively called "Juki kalli" or "garment kalli" (Juki refers to the industrial sewing machine they use; "kalli" is a sexist term referring to a woman as an "object") – are the ones paying the highest price. Women make up about eight in every 10 workers in the garment industry in Sri Lanka.
A garment worker is typically paid a basic wage of Rs. 10,000 (USD 56) a month to make garments for well-known Western brands, among the others Levi's, Puma and Victoria's Secret. Many brands and fashion houses nowadays try to come up with projects and programs with some social or sustainable twist about them to prove consumers they do care about people and the environment. But, in the case of Sri Lanka, many brands are simply not caring and have already started looking for alternative markets, such as Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Yet it is about time that we as consumers realised that the political and economic instability of a country that may be geographically distant from us but that may be present with its products in our own wardrobes, can have an impact on other countries and that we can make a difference by making more responsible choices when we go out shopping. As for the industry, at some point, between endless runway shows and collections, it will have to realise that, in a world in turmoil, finding the next country to exploit may be a quick solution to produce more instant cheap clothes, but it is not the final solution to the crises that will keep on hitting the garment industry in a variety of countries and at different levels.
Rispondi