In a previous post we analysed the composition of textiles used for a skirt and a cropped top, but we should always wonder not just what our clothes are made of, but also who makes them.
A woman from Derbyshire recently found in the lining of her coat a Chinese prisoner's ID card. The coat was purchased from British brand Regatta during a Black Friday sale, as reported by The Guardian. Upon wearing it the woman discovered there was something hard in the right sleeve that impaired her movement. She cut the jacket and discovered the ID card – complete with a mugshot of a man in a prison uniform and the prison details.
The plastic holder indicated it was produced by the Ministry of Justice prisons bureau, raising concerns about potential prison labor involvement in the clothing's manufacturing.
When the woman contacted Regatta's customer service, they initially dismissed it as a worker's ID from a Chinese factory and suggested disposing of it. Subsequently, an email requested the return of the ID and the coat, with the woman claiming that Regatta offered a replacement coat, though the company denied it.
The incident raises questions about the efficacy of auditing supply chains, especially in large-scale high street brands. Regatta, based in Manchester, is part of the Regatta Group, selling outdoor clothing through various channels. Despite being a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative like its other brands, Regatta faces challenges in ensuring ethical working standards, especially in remote factories like those in China. The company claims that the garment in question was produced in a fully compliant factory in China, audited by a certified third party in July 2023, with no policy breaches found.
However, the process of auditing has become exceedingly challenging for certain companies across diverse industries. As discussed in a prior podcast, one can draw a comparison between ultra-fast fashion retailers and supermarkets. In the food sector, companies and supermarket suppliers claim to conduct audits on agricultural produce to demonstrate that the harvesting operations are carried out by legal workers and not by exploited illegal immigrants. However, these audits often involve remote checks or infrequent on-site visits to farms. A similar scenario unfolds in the fashion industry, where auditors are significantly distant from the factories in China or Bangladesh that may be engaging in exploitative practices for profit.
In August 2022, China affirmed its commitment to the International Labour Organization (ILO) by formally ratifying the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105). Convention No. 29 unequivocally prohibits all forms of forced labor, compelling state parties to criminalize such practices. Besides, Convention No. 105 mandates the immediate eradication of compulsory labor for diverse purposes, including political coercion, education, punishment, economic development, labor discipline, and discrimination based on race, social status, nationality, or religion.
However, prior investigations and research have exposed that individuals detained in China, sometimes for extended periods due to religious practices or behaviors deemed disloyal (such as using WhatsApp, sporting a beard, or studying abroad), are frequently exploited in the garment industry. This includes members of the Uyghur population, as well as Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Hui, Mongols, and Xibe. In response to these concerns, the United States State Department implemented the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), that was approved by the Senate and Congress in 2021 and signed into law by US President Joe Biden in June 2022.
In the last ten years there have been other cases in which handwritten notes by exploited inmates were uncovered in consumer products. In 2013, a woman in Oregon found a folded letter within a package of Halloween decorations sold at Kmart. The handwritten note detailed the writer's imprisonment in a labor camp in northeastern China. The writer described grueling conditions with inmates working seven days a week for 15 hours, enduring the brutality of sadistic guards and urged recipients to forward it to the World Human Rights Organization. The author of the letter was later identified as religious dissident Sun Yi, who spent over two years at Masanjia Labor Camp in China (the story is recounted in the volume "Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods" by Amelia Pang).
In 2017, a shopper in Arizona discovered a distressing note in a handbag purchased from Walmart. The note, written in Chinese characters, detailed harsh working conditions and beatings endured by a presumed Chinese prisoner at Yingshan Prison in Guangxi. The findings continued in 2015 when a shopper in Swansea and another in Belfast found labels sewn into pieces of clothing from Primark (one read: "forced to work exhausting hours"), and in 2019 a note from foreign prisoners in China appealing for help was found in a Christmas card.
In 2021, a woman from Norwich stumbled upon a Chinese prisoner's ID sewn into the lining of a new coat she had purchased online for £49.99. The coat was bought from a UK fashion firm suspected of outsourcing its stock and inventory to China and other international markets.
The ID card found in the Regatta coat, identifies a specific prisoner and prison (that specializes in garment production and electronics components processing), something that makes you dread about the fate of the prisoner in question and also makes you wonder if, from now on, there will be more thorough checks on garments to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
The incident underscores the importance for companies to assess potential human rights infringements: ensuring the security of supply chains is a complex task, particularly for a widely recognized high street brand manufacturing thousands (if not millions) of garments annually. Nevertheless, it remains crucial for companies to thoroughly evaluate any potential violations of human rights. At the same time, this story reminds us that, as consumers, we should be vigilant, get informed about the ethical standards of the brands we favour and also avoid buying extremely cheap items from ultra fast retailers, a clear sign that these products may be made with prison labor or in sweatshops.
