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Child Labour in Fast Fashion: How Our Clothing Choices Harm Children

KARA reportingMike TikkanenJuly 5, 2026

Republished from the Kids at Risk Action archive as written. No images from the original corpus appear in any form.

This is part one of KARA’s Guest writer Eshanee Singh’s reporting on child Labor. Part two can be read here.

Child Labour in Fast Fashion

Fast fashion raises the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? Corporations and experts argue that companies are keeping up with and serving consumer demands for cheaper clothing, novelty and impulse shopping. But what must be questioned is where does this demand for cheaper fast fashion come from, what is driving consumer demand for cheaper, trendier clothing? In an interview with NPR, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion states that chains like H&M are experiencing constant turn over in their merchandise, introducing ever-trendier clothing and feeding customers’ desire for novelty. It is argued that once companies and retailers have awakened consumers’ desire for an item, or once a need is created, the cost of manufacturing that item must be kept low in order to keep the product affordable while also keeping corporations’ and shareholders’ profit high. This is where unethical and illegal means of production comes into play. Corporations can keep costs low through using synthetic materials, rudimentary manufacturing processes and cheap labour. This NPR article explains that as factory workers in China are increasingly pressing for higher wages, corporations are responding by moving their manufacturing and production to places where wages are even lower, such as Bangladesh. Another means of keeping wages and cost of production low is using child labour, whether explicitly or turning a blind eye to the presence of child labour in the production process.

The European Union explains that most child labour occurs in agriculture, and cotton, the main raw material of textiles, is one of the crops where there is a high incidence of child labour. Not only does this interfere with a child’s education, but working in cotton is detrimental to a child’s health because of the harmful pesticides, high temperatures working outdoors and the risk of diseases from animals and insects. The International Labour Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the EU have partnered to eliminate child labour in the cotton, textile and garment value chains through the CLEAR Cotton project. This aims to strengthen national legislation, policies and programs to address the basic needs and rights of children, and to support stakeholders in taking action to stop child labour. It is stated that so far, the project has removed 4000 children from the cotton fields and has integrated them into special schools.

Buy why do we see child labour in the production and manufacturing of clothing? The United Nations (UN) published a document titled Children’s Rights in the Garment and Footwear Supply Chain, a practical tool for integrating children’s rights into responsible sourcing frameworks. It states that children are impacted, directly and indirectly, through both workplace and community conditions that are often interlinked. One issue identified is children being left behind or forcing children to live separate from parental care and oversight due to long working hours, lack of childcare and low wages. Another issue identified is the environmental impacts of manufacturing on surrounding communities spreading diseases or increasing a children’s risk of illness. While this guide had identified how children are negatively impacted by the conditions parents experience at work and in their community, it does not adequately highlight the use of child labour throughout global value chains.

It has been identified that children are being put to work at all stages of the supply chain. SOMO (The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations) is a non-profit research and network organization working on issues related to sustainable development, investigating multinational corporations and the consequences of corporation activities for people and the environment. In India, in 2007, more than 400,000 children under 18 were found employed in cotton seeds farms conducting manual cross pollination of cotton plants, and from 2009-2019 381,500 children. In Egypt, an estimated 1 million children aged between 7 and 12, work to manually remove pests from cotton plants, risking long hours, exposure to pesticides and physical and sexual abuse. In Uzbekistan, for 2 months of every year 1.5 to 2 million school children, as young as 9, miss school and help with cotton harvesting, facing harvest quotas and harsh conditions with little to no pay. It is stated that the fast fashion model has a deteriorating effect on working conditions. The demand for cheap, unskilled labour, certain physical attributes and a need to increase a family’s household income, due to low adult wages, are all contributing factors to the existence of child labour and a perpetuating cycle of poverty.

Walk Free, an international human rights group, has illustrated that it is not just fast fashion where we see problems of child labour, many luxury and high-end brands are also profiting from exploitation and engaging in child and forced labour. For example, children under the age of 15 are picking the jasmine flowers used by Lancome and Aerin Beauty in their popular perfumes . Budgets set by brand owners, such as L’oreal and Estee Lauder, puts pressures on wages that is argued to trickle down ultimately to the pickers. Also, child labour is used in mining the gold used in many popular jewelry brands. Some jewelry brands point to their Responsible Jewelry Council certifications as proof of their responsible sourcing practices; however, some argue that the standards used for certification are broad and imprecise and does not require full tracing of mineral sources. A Know the Chain 2021 report analyzes and scores major apparel and footwear brands’ efforts to address forced labour risks. Their methodology is based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and uses the ILO’s core labour standards, including the elimination of child labour as a fundamental right at work. It is found that the world’s biggest fashion companies have an average score of 41/100, while luxury brands have a score of 31/100. Specifically, Prada scored 5/100, the owner of the Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton labels scored 19/100 and the owner of the Coach and Kate Spade labels scored 16/100. It is argued that the poor performance of luxury brands in addressing unethical and illegal labour practices is a result of a lack of will rather than a lack of resources. Corporations and brands earn billions of dollars in corporate profits and millions of dollars are paid in dividends to shareholders, yet they lack adequate policies and programs to prevent and address child labour.

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This article was submitted by KARA Guest Writer Eshanee Singh

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