Mauritius: Transparentem investigation prompts buyer remediation & compensation for migrant workers at garment factories supplying major apparel brands
After a two year investigation into conditions for workers at five factories in Mauritius, Transparentem has published its findings and results of its engagement with apparel brands, prompting remediation and compensation for migrant workers who suffered a litany of labour rights abuses. Almost 100 garment workers from Bangladesh were interviewed in total for the investigation. […]
3 fashion companies agree to compensate Mauritius garment workers following report
Three major fashion companies, including PVH, the parent company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, Second Clothing, and UK-heritage brand Barbour, have agreed to pay a total of 420,593 USD in compensation to garment workers in Mauritius following the publication of an undercover investigation into labor rights abuse.
Fashion firms agree to compensate garment workers in Mauritius
Barbour and owner of Calvin Klein and Hilfiger among brands to pay £400,000 after report alleges illegal hiring fees, deception and intimidation.
Ben Skinner Discusses Transparentem’s Mauritius Investigation on MSNBC
Our Founder & President Benjamin Skinner recently sat down with Richard Lui on MSNBC to discuss our newly published investigation into labor rights abuses in apparel factories in Mauritius.
Going Backward Was the Biggest Trend of 2023
Skinny models. White male designers. Shoulder pads. This year, fashion failed on many of its promises.
Transparentem Founder Ben Skinner’s NYT Op-ed on Apparel Supply Chains 10 Years After Rana Plaza
In this New York Times op-ed, Transparentem founder and president Ben Skinner exposes the abuses still rife in apparel supply chains ten years after the Rana Plaza disaster. One big reason: brands’ overreliance on the multibillion-dollar social auditing industry, which often fails to detect problems when factory managers deceive auditors.
‘Effectively and Systematically Gamed’: Why Audits Need an Overhaul
As an inferno ravaged a five-story footwear factory in southern Thailand last week, leaving massive cracks in the blackened walls that had firefighters fearing the building’s collapse, human-rights experts are debating the limits of social audits, particularly in the context of voluntary due diligence in global supply chains.
Uncovering Audit Deception: Countering Hidden Social Compliance Violations
“Sophie Broach, an investigations analyst at the global workers’ rights advocate Transparentem, writes about the nonprofit organization’s investigations into forced labor, child labor and other human rights abuses in economies in Asia, including India, Malaysia and Myanmar, which revealed the seriousness and prevalence of audit deception.”
Tech-Driven Tools To Uncover Labor Exploitation
“The report Hidden Harm: Audit Deception in Apparel Supply Chains and the Urgent Case for Reform, by the nonprofit organization Transparentem, documents many cases of deception during social audits in India, Malaysia, and Myanmar.”
Sweatshop Conditions Hide Behind Low-Quality Monitoring, Report Says
“In interviews at almost 20 factories and spinning mills in India, Malaysia and Myanmar, Transparentem investigators learned that employers routinely hid underage workers during audits, coached them to lie about their ages, or gave them modified identity documents to make them look older.”