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Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Human rights abuse documented in global leather supply chain
This story was originally published on Fashion Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Fashion Dive newsletter. A new report by the Fair Labor Association and human rights consultancy firm Impactt found human rights abuse at every stage of the global leather supply chain, including child labor, exposure to chemicals, compensation issues and discrimination. The six-month study, which was conducted last year and included a survey of 19 industry stakeholders, identified problem areas and made recommendations on how companies at all levels of the leather processing industry can foster traceability and improve conditions for workers. Based on the findings, the report's authors suggest companies invest in their own traceability solutions, engage with third-party organizations on certifications and assessments, collaborate on solving existing issues, and have an exit strategy when it comes to countries at high risk of geopolitical differences. While leather is often considered a by-product of the meat industry, the FLA report said leather's use continues to grow in the apparel, accessories and footwear sectors. In 2022, the global leather industry was valued at $243 billion, and it's expected to grow at a rate of 6.6% from 2023 to 2030. The study tracked abuse in the meatpacking and leather by-product industries globally, and found a number of countries were using child labor in the production of leather goods and accessories, including Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, India and Mexico. An additional 15 countries were cited for using child labor, forced labor, or both, to produce bovine or cattle, the main source of leather hides. Report authors created the survey to present an overview of the leather industry in Brazil, and included profiles of both the global leather industry and the leather industry specific to Brazil, in order to determine hot spot problem areas. Authors studied more than 100 research papers, articles, opinion pieces, media reports and other documents to compile results. The study and its findings are meant to establish dialogue between the meatpacking and leather apparel industry, and urge the various stakeholders to conform to global standards as a way to improve worker conditions. 'This report brings much-needed attention to the parts of the leather supply chain where risks to workers are highest and visibility is lowest,' Raquel Fisch, principal consultant at Impactt said in a statement. 'This research shows that workers on farms, in slaughterhouses, and in tanneries often face harsh conditions with little oversight or recourse. Yet these tiers are rarely covered by human rights due diligence. This report offers a valuable roadmap for companies to build traceability and accountability upstream, and to design systems that start with the realities of the workers most affected.' The report cited statistics from The Leather Council, which stated that 47% of leather is used in the manufacturing of footwear and 10% is used for apparel. In addition, the report cited information from the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, also called SOMO, which stated that most leather manufacturing is done in China, although Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are also major sources for leather and leather-related apparel. 'By illuminating challenges in upstream supply chains for commodities like leather, we aim to drive accountability and inspire collective actions toward a more equitable industry,' Richa Mittal, executive vice president and chief innovation officer at FLA said in a statement. 'This will help ensure dignity and respect for all workers at all levels of a company's global supply chain – not just Tier One.' Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brazilian Leather Comes With Human Rights Risks. Identifying It is a Problem.
Mention the risks of leather production in Brazil, and thoughts naturally turn to issues involving illegal deforestation for raising cattle in the Amazon, one of the world's biggest beef providers. But the hide trade goes far beyond that, a new report from the Fair Labor Association pointed out Thursday. The labor-intensive, convoluted and, at the same time, fractured supply chains that produce everything from handbags to apparel to footwear to sporting goods are often riddled with treacherous working conditions that harbor child labor, exploitative wages, safety issues, irresponsible recruitment and attacks on freedom of association and collective bargaining. More from Sourcing Journal U.S. and Xinjiang Cotton Are Locked in a Trade War of Their Own Research Draws 'Probable' Links Between Shein and Xinjiang Textile Production Nike Relents on Thai Wage Theft Case, Albeit With 'Deficiencies' in Plan These human rights problems aren't unknown, said Richa Mittal, vice president and chief innovation officer at the Washington, D.C.-based multi-stakeholder organization. Between 1995 and 2022, the livestock industry was responsible for nearly half of the detected cases of slave labor in Brazil, according to estimates based on government data. The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs has also consistently flagged the sector for forced and child labor. Still, the problem for fashion companies is that their visibility ends where the meat industry begins. Many of the certifications brands rely on, such as the Leather Working Group or the Brazilian Leather Certification of Sustainability, terminate at the tannery level, meaning there is little follow-up to conditions at the slaughterhouses or farms. This isn't just a leather issue, Mittal said, but a broader fashion one. Fashion, she said, tends to look at traceability from a 'tier-to-tier perspective' that drops down from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and so forth. Very few brands, even those at FLA, have nailed traceability to the farm level. Even so, leather includes an additional complication. 'There is no certification, from a leather perspective, at the slaughterhouse or at the birthing farms. It's the meat packaging industry that has inspections there and that information is not available to the apparel sector,' she said. 'This is the merger of two different sectors, which is not the case in, for example, cotton, which is only used in textiles. Here, the main product is meat, which is used for food, and leather is a byproduct for apparel and footwear.' Another problem is that most leather supply chain audits focus on environmental issues—for instance, chemical management—with a limited eye on decent work. At the same time, the human rights risks are manifold. The tanning process alone comes with prolonged exposure to hazardous substances, including confirmed or potential carcinogens, that have been linked to burns, skin diseases, respiratory illnesses and a significantly high rate of cancer. Injuries from heavy lifting are still common despite widespread mechanization. And the prevalence of informal jobs that provide neither benefits nor social insurance payments, coupled with the lack of on-site worker representation or trade unions, means employees are seldom able to advocate for themselves. The precarity is further concentrated at the slaughterhouse stage. Direct recruitment, Mittal said, is becoming increasingly difficult because of the low pay and long hours. Some meat packers work with labor agents who recruit migrant workers from other parts of Brazil or from countries such as Haiti and Venezuela. With 90 percent of Brazilian slaughterhouses certified to produce halal meat, Muslim employees are in high demand. These are typically recruited through labor intermediaries such as agents who organize their employment and accommodation. In some instances, however, human trafficking is involved. 'There's also the repetitive work,' she said. 'Mental health issues have come up. Gender-based issues have come up because primarily the women are the ones working, but then the management is mostly men. There's no social safety net if they get into accidents, and the risk of amputation is quite high. And because nothing is documented, it's very hard to assess hours of work, very hard to assess compensation, very hard to assess the recruitment process, the contracts.' Cattle farms are in their own black box, with fewer inspections and more informal work arrangements. Again, temporary work is common, as is migrant labor that can be linked to debt bondage, say, from having to purchase food and work equipment from their employers. Families that work on farms are usually paid by the owners to live in and manage the estate, Mittal said. Because children work with their parents, this raises the potential for child labor. 'So each tier presents its own issues, and I would say the reason why companies have not been able to take action is because there's very little link between tanneries and slaughterhouses and the farms, and this is where the meat industry plays a big role,' she said. 'It's quite secretive in a way.' At the same time, fashion businesses are butting up against increasing regulation that demands they know where and by whom their products are made. The past several years alone have manifested mandatory supply chain due diligence acts in France, Germany, Norway, not to mention the broader European Union, that require companies to fully map out the extent of their social and environmental risks and report on their mitigation efforts. Most salient to the industry, Mittal said, are the EU's deforestation-free products and forced labor regulations. 'The regulations have only increased,' she said. 'It may not be a linear increase—right now we're in a regressive phase—but in the long run they will only grow. Companies should think of this time as not [a reason] to reduce their efforts, but to double down on their efforts in preparation for what is to come.' While Mittal acknowledged that companies are 'not a monolith,' what that means at the 'very, very minimum' is for corporate leadership to kick-start talks with their materials teams to identify where their leather is coming from. What are the tanneries they're working with? Where are they located? How low in the supply chain can you go? Companies that are starting out don't have to do everything, she said. They can start with a single country. Or follow the 80-20 rule by homing in on the 20 percent of their suppliers that are responsible for 80 percent of the work. Another thing Mittal advises, based on the FLA approach, is for businesses to break out of their silos and engage with others tackling the same issues. For 'really advanced' companies—of which there are none at the moment—this could include setting up country-level structures with local governments or working in cross-sectoral collaboration with meatpacking and other sectors. Mittal's biggest message? Go beyond Tier 1. But any action based on a firm's available resources at all would be a plus. 'With supply chain mapping, I think a lot of companies think of it as a project that has a start date and it has an end date, but that's the mentality they need to get rid of,' she said. 'Like, quality is not a start and finish. Supply chain mapping is a continuous process you need to integrate into your human rights due diligence program.'
