Amnesty International charged on Thursday that governments and the global fashion industry profit from the ongoing abuse of workers’ right to freedom of association in four major garment manufacturing hubs, asserting that this violates international labor rights.

The organization based its findings on two reports compiled between September 2023 and August 2024 across 20 garment factories in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In the first report, the rights group found that employers frequently threatened garment workers with dismissal, preventing them from joining a union and creating a climate of fear. Additionally, women, who make up the majority of the fashion industry workforce, remain significantly underrepresented in factory management, and face disproportionate risks of harassment, physical abuse, and discrimination compared to their male counterparts. Despite these challenges, they rarely obtain justice as effective remedies are lacking, and restrictions on unions further limit their ability to seek redress.

Amnesty also highlighted the failure of national authorities to implement a living wage and promote equal pay for all workers. It further stated that the four countries enabled garment factories to overlook workers’ rights by maintaining legislation that protected factory owners’ interests and deploying various methods to deny workers’ right to unionize, including union busting, replacing unions with pro-management bodies, and imposing obstacles to the right to strike.

Workers’ right to unionize is protected under multiple international instruments, including the International Labor Organization’s Convention on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, and Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There is an ongoing debate regarding recognition of workers’ right to strike under ILO conventions, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is expected to provide guidance on this issue.

Amnesty International also found that fashion companies do not comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Instead, the group said the companies had opted for privatized codes of conduct for human rights policies and business-led auditing processes, which facilitated the exploitation of workers.

The rights group therefore urged states to adhere to international standards and take necessary measures to protect garment workers’ right to freedom of association, including by revising all laws that overly restrict the right to unionize. Regarding fashion brands, the organization emphasized that companies should support the formation of independent unions in their supplier factories, implement effective human rights due diligence systems, and respect the right to a living wage.

Respect for labor rights has drawn global attention as abuses have been observed in various countries amid a broader trend of legislative rollbacks on companies’ international human rights obligations. Earlier this month, Amnesty International criticized France’s short-term residency system for exposing migrant workers to labor exploitation. The organization also published a report documenting human rights abuses against migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, including poor working conditions and low wages. Another rights group also called for a new global treaty to guarantee fair wages for gig workers and to protect them from exploitative management practices.