Center for Business and Human Rights

There are more than 7,000 garment factories in Bangladesh producing for the global fashion industry, 65% more than previous estimates. More than half of these factories are small and medium-sized indirect sourcing factories, meaning their workers produce for foreign brands through other, larger factories. These factories operate in the shadows. The result is that millions of workers in subcontracting factories fall outside the protection of international safety-improvement initiatives, and are especially vulnerable in a country where unsafe working conditions are a chronic problem. While global brands, governments in North America and Europe, and international lenders have announced commitments of more than US$280 million for the garment sector in Bangladesh, to date, only a handful of factories have been fixed.

MBA student Sarah Manning partners with Sarah Labowitz and the NYU Stern Center for Business Human Rights to quantify and map more than 7,000 garment factories in Bangladesh.

This week sees the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U.S., known as Black Friday. The era of fast fashion will bring great deals for consumers but too little consideration for the well-being of those who make the holiday bounty.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Human Rights works to promote industry-wide approaches to human rights challenges. In 2014, the council, including Professor Michael Posner, undertook a two-year project to examine global supply chains with the aim to explore the increasingly vital relationship between large global buyers and the local suppliers and governments in the countries where they operate.

One area where greater attention must now be directed is in tackling human rights challenges throughout global supply chains. An essential element of this effort is to create greater transparency, a place where human rights defenders have a vital role to play.

The prevailing model for addressing poor working conditions in the apparel supply chain is failing.

Since its decisive victory in recent U.K. elections, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party has threatened to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) and possibly withdraw from the Council of Europe. On Wednesday, bowing to pressure from senior Tory leaders, Cameron agreed to suspend plans to repeal the law for wider consultation.

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory complex collapsed, killing more than 1,100 workers. It was the biggest industrial accident in modern memory. Two years later, too little has been done to ensure worker safety. Despite the fact that a number of global brands and retailers have contributed to a $30 million fund to benefit the families of the victims, too many continue to suffer. And even though these global brands and retailers have conducted factory safety inspections in about 1800 factories and the government has inspected another 700, far too many people continue to work in unsafe conditions. As we mark the second anniversary of Rana Plaza, global brands, local manufacturers, and governments have a long road ahead to ensure worker safety.

In recent weeks, students at Harvard, Yale, Bowdoin and Swarthmore have staged sit-ins demanding that their schools divest from companies that mine fossil fuels. These students are right to be alarmed about the perilous state of our planet, but the widespread resistance by university administrators to these divestment campaigns and the lack of results call for a new approach.

Two MBA students partner with NYU Stern’s Center for Business and Human Rights on a Stern Signature Project to estimate the true size of the export garment sector in Bangladesh.