Why Can’t Fashion Fix Its Labour Exploitation Problem?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Business of Fashion Podcast - "Why Can’t Fashion Fix Its Labour Exploitation Problem?"

Episode Information:

• Title: Why Can’t Fashion Fix Its Labour Exploitation Problem?
• Host/Author: The Business of Fashion
• Release Date: February 25, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Business of Fashion Podcast, hosts Sheena Butler Young and Brian Baskin delve into the persistent issue of labor exploitation within the fashion industry's supply chains. Despite ongoing reports and advocacy, systemic problems such as child labor in India's cotton fields and modern-day slavery in Taiwanese garment factories remain unresolved. The discussion features insights from BoF sustainability editor Sarah Kent, who unpacks the complexities hindering meaningful change.

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Persistent Labor Issues in Fashion Supply Chains

Brian Baskin opens the conversation by highlighting the recurring nature of labor exploitation scandals in the fashion industry, referencing historic incidents like the Rana Plaza collapse and Nike's sweatshop controversies.

“Today we're addressing a problem everyone in the industry says must be solved and yet never seems to get fixed...” [00:19]

Sarah Kent emphasizes that these issues are systemic and pervasive, often only surfacing through intensive investigative efforts by organizations like Transparent.

“The issues are systemic and pervasive and happening all the time. They only get attention when individuals or organizations take the time to do the hard investigative work to bring them to light.” [01:04]

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Case Studies: India and Taiwan

India's Cotton Fields

The podcast delves into recent BoF reports uncovering child labor in India's cotton fields. Sarah Kent explains the fragmented supply chain, where smallholder farmers and marginalized communities are often exploited.

“In India you have a really, really fragmented cotton supply chain... marginalized, poor communities within the state and no one's really paying attention to how they're being treated.” [04:52]

She also notes the cultural normalization of family members working together in the fields, complicating efforts to eradicate exploitation.

Taiwan's Garment Factories

Moving to Taiwan, the discussion shifts to modern slavery practices facilitated by the "pay for play" system, where migrant workers pay hefty recruitment fees to secure employment.

“Recruitment agents... charge workers... up to $6,000 to be able to come across and get these contracts.” [08:00]

Kent highlights the role of Transparentum in exposing these practices and connecting them to global brands, stressing that without collective industry action, significant change remains elusive.

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Systemic Challenges and Brand Accountability

A significant portion of the episode examines the arm’s length relationship between brands and their suppliers, making transparency nearly impossible.

“Brands for the most part have no idea where that cotton comes from.” [05:14]

Kent critiques certification schemes, arguing that they often fail due to reliance on self-disclosure and lack effective monitoring.

“Monitoring everything is extremely difficult. Really, doing it will be very expensive. And so you rely a lot on self disclosure, and that doesn't work.” [07:42]

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Economic Implications of Ethical Sourcing

Sheena Butler Young brings attention to the financial burdens of correcting labor abuses, such as repaying recruitment fees in Taiwan.

“Manufacturers who operate on very thin margins suddenly have this new cost they've taken on. They are going to want to pass that on to their customer.” [20:09]

Kent discusses the delicate balance between maintaining competitive pricing and ensuring ethical labor practices, noting the industry's resistance to increased costs.

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Role of Governments and Regulatory Bodies

The conversation touches on the impact of governmental policies, particularly in the US and Europe. Kent expresses concern over the Trump administration's approach, which could undermine efforts to regulate and monitor supply chains effectively.

“The administration has been freezing USAID... really damage organizations on the ground that help shine a spotlight on these issues.” [22:15]

Similarly, European regulations aimed at increasing brand accountability are under threat, shifting focus from social values to competitiveness.

“Regulation that was meant to make brands more responsible is increasingly just seen as making them less competitive...” [23:31]

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Consumer Influence and Market Dynamics

The hosts explore the limited power consumers currently hold to drive substantial change, despite a niche market of ethically conscious shoppers.

“As long as it's not the mainstream market, I don't think that mainstream brands are going to feel like they have to make the shift to meet consumer needs.” [24:38]

Kent warns that decreasing consumer trust in ethical certifications could lead to apathy, hampering progress toward more responsible practices.

“If consumers lose trust... you risk people not caring at all because they throw their hands up and say, well, you know, it's all bad...” [15:03]

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Pathways to Hope and Progress

Amidst the challenges, Kent and the hosts highlight hopeful developments. Organizations like Transparentum are fostering change through sustained engagement with brands, aiming to create industry-wide momentum.

“These issues are being talked about. A light is being shed on them. And over time I hope that forces movement in action.” [25:55]

Baskin adds an optimistic note by referencing past successes, such as the boycott movement in Uzbekistan that led to improved conditions in cotton fields.

“These problems can be, if not entirely fixed. Things can get better.” [25:18]

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reaffirmation of the possibility for positive change within the fashion industry's labor practices. While acknowledging the complexity and deep-rooted nature of exploitation issues, the discussion underscores the importance of continued advocacy, transparency, and collective action among brands, governments, and consumers.

“There's always room for hope.” [26:11]

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Notable Quotes:

• Sarah Kent [01:04]: “The issues are systemic and pervasive and happening all the time. They only get attention when individuals or organizations take the time to do the hard investigative work to bring them to light.”

• Brian Baskin [05:14]: “Brands for the most part have no idea where that cotton comes from.”

• Sarah Kent [07:42]: “Monitoring everything is extremely difficult. Really, doing it will be very expensive. And so you rely a lot on self disclosure, and that doesn't work.”

• Sheena Butler Young [20:09]: “They are going to want to pass that on to their customer.”

• Sarah Kent [22:15]: “The administration has been freezing USAID... really damage organizations on the ground that help shine a spotlight on these issues.”

• Brian Baskin [26:11]: “These problems can be, if not entirely fixed. Things can get better.”

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Further Resources:

Listeners are encouraged to read Sarah Kent's articles, including:

• Ethical Cotton is being picked by Child Laborers in India
• Why Can't Fashion Eliminate labor exploitation from its supply chains

These articles are accessible to BMF Professional subscribers and can be found via the episode notes.

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This summary aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the podcast episode, encapsulating the key discussions, insights, and conclusions for those who have not listened to the full episode.

Transcript

[Brian Baskin]

FOREIGN.

[Sheena Butler Young]

Hello, and welcome to the Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we explore our most pressing industry stories with the correspondents who bring them to life. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler Young.

[Brian Baskin]

And I'm executive editor Brian Baskin. Today we're addressing a problem everyone in the industry says must be solved and yet never seems to get fixed, which is the poor treatment of so many of the workers in fashion's supply chain. BoF has published reports in recent weeks on child labor in India's cotton fields and modern day slavery in Taiwanese garment factories. And that's this year, 2025, 12 years after the Rana Plaza factory collapse and 30 years after Nike's sweatshop scandals. And I'll throw in about 200 years after Charles Dickens wrote about this.

[Sheena Butler Young]

Joining us to break it all down and discuss the roadblocks to substantive and long lasting change is BoF sustainability editor Sarah Kent. Hi, Sarah. Welcome back to the Debrief podcast.

[Sarah Kent]

Hi guys. Thanks so much for having me. I feel like I always bring the fun topics.

[Sheena Butler Young]

That's a good way to put the fun topics. Well, they're very important topics for sure. So, Sarah, we're talking about two different but equally concerning reports since just the start of 2025. They're laying bare these persistent challenges in creating fair labor conditions in fash supply chains. Now this kind of thing, as Brian pointed out, keeps happening over and over and over again. Why is all this coming to a head right now?

[Sarah Kent]

I don't even know that it is coming to a head right now. As Brian said, we've, we've seen these incidents pop up consistently for decades now, for centuries even. And it's not clear to me that this time around is going to be any different in driving more change. What happened in the last few months is that there were a couple of investigations that came our way revealing some of these situations. So an NGO called Transparent and put a lot of work into demonstrating that these issues were happening. But the issues are systemic and pervasive and happening all the time. And they only get attention when individuals or organizations take the time to do the hard investigative work to bring them to light. And that's what's happening right now.

[Brian Baskin]

And I think what's so surprising about the two instances that you wrote about this year is, is the first one, India, this was happening in so called ethical cotton fields that children were, were basically being forced into working in these fields to supply what consumers, mainly in the west, see as ethical clothing. And that's a recurring theme here. As well. Right. Which is that even when there are watchdogs in place, there are systems in place to prevent exactly this sort of abuse. It just keeps happening.

[Sarah Kent]

Right. The systems aren't really working. And that's partly because the way the systems have been set up is to protect the brands from liability rather than to protect the workers from exploitation.

[Sheena Butler Young]

Can we talk a little bit about that report? I don't know that our listeners will all know some of the things that these reports have found. Like there are kids as young as six years old in some of these fields, but also they're inhaling like chemicals. Talk a little bit about those findings, Sarah.

[Sarah Kent]

Right. And so I think what's interesting is that you've got two very different situations in India and Taiwan, but the underlying issues are often very similar. So in India, Transparent and did a big investigation. They talked to dozens of workers on cotton fields and found that in many cases, in many of these fields, children were working, they were spraying pesticides that were toxic, they were falling sick. And these were fields that in some cases claimed to be organics. There shouldn't have been pesticides being sprayed at all. Or in other cases were part of suppliers who claimed to be operating responsibly. But really what was happening is, you know, in India you have a really, really fragmented cotton supply chain. So often these are small holder farmers, family farms, they'll bring on seasonal laborers to help sow the cotton, pick the cotton. So it's not regularized in any way. Oftentimes these farmhands are from very, very marginalized, poor communities within the state and no one's really paying attention to how they're being treated. And often it is normalized for families to come and work in the fields together. So you're not just dealing with an issue of exploitation that is coming from the industry. You're dealing with a culture that is ingrained in the way the community works. And that is a very difficult, complicated thing to try and manage.

[Sheena Butler Young]

And something that comes up in your reports on these issues often is this arm's length relationship that brands have with suppliers and factories. Talk a little bit about that because you could be a big brand in the States claiming to be using ethical cotton and have no line of sight into how that so called ethical cotton is actually being produced or sent to another manufacturer. Talk about that a little bit.

[Sarah Kent]

Yeah, I mean, brands for the most part have no idea where that cotton comes from. And this is despite decades of advocacy for brands to get more transparency of their supply chain. And this isn't Just negligence. Like the cotton supply chain is extremely complicated and brands are very, very distant from their raw material. So, so if you think of your average fashion brand, they directly contract with probably quite a large number of factories that make that cut and sew and actually make the clothes that we then buy in the store. But they're not usually going out and buying the materials that go into those products. Instead, those manufacturers have their own suppliers who provide fabrics, and those fabric suppliers will have their own suppliers who spin yarn into the fabric themselves. And those spinners will again have their own suppliers who are probably traders, not actually, you know, farmers who are supplying them with cotton. The traders will have been getting the cotton from ginners who will have got raw cotton from, from, in the case of India, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of small family farms aggregated it, ginned it, sold it onto a trader who then sells it up through the supply chain. So by the time it even gets to a spinning factory, facing it back to the farm where it came from is really, really difficult.

[Sheena Butler Young]

I don't know how a brand could claim to be ethical when you've heard, I've heard like 13,000 steps.

[Sarah Kent]

So many steps.

[Brian Baskin]

Well, that's a great question though, which is how are these brands able to claim their ethical when it sounds like every time one of these things happens, they say, well, we have no way of knowing what's going on. And then you say, well, then how did you know you were ethical then if you didn't actually know where any of this was coming from?

[Sarah Kent]

Well, and this is where certifications come in. Because what brands will do is they'll say, okay, look, it's very hard to figure out where exactly our cotton came from. So we'll go to an external certifier and we'll buy organic cotton or better cotton initiative cotton. And that will allow us to claim in some way that the cotton we're buying was produced ethically. But often these cotton certification schemes themselves have the same problem because monitoring everything is extremely difficult. Really, doing it will be very expensive. And so you rely a lot on self disclosure, and that doesn't work.

[Sheena Butler Young]

I want to talk about Taiwan a little bit too. One of the things that really struck me in your reporting was this idea of pay for play and that people that are employed at some of these Taiwanese factories or textile factories are paying for their jobs. Jobs or paying to be employed. Walk us through some of that and how that happens and why that's legal.

[Sarah Kent]

Well, so Taiwan is a big manufacturing hub. It's not like one of the places that might immediately spring to mind, like China or Bangladesh, because, again, Taiwan primarily makes fabrics. So it's not the first tier of suppliers that brands contract with. They're the people who are supplying the materials to manufacturers. So it's a little bit further down the supply chain than some of the countries that you might initially think of as fashion suppliers. Taiwan also suffers from big labor shortage issues. It's got a small population, but it's a big manufacturing country, not just for fabrics, but for electronics and other products. And so it relies heavily on migrant labor. And in order to recruit migrants into the industry, many, many factories rely on recruitment agents. In the fashion industry's case, countries like Vietnam and Thailand and the Philippines, who will bring over large numbers of workers to fill the needs of the factories. But these agencies will charge workers who want to come over to Thailand large amounts of money, up to $6,000 to be able to come across and get these contracts. And they can do that because the opportunity to earn higher wages in Taiwan is very tempting to migrant workers.

[Sheena Butler Young]

That 6,000 is like a fraction of what you actually earn. In some cases, it's like months of their salary.

[Sarah Kent]

It's months of salary, but the earning potential workers still believe makes it worth it. This operates in the shadows, and I really have to give credit to the work of Transparentum, who's done an incredible job in digging into this and not only shining a light on the issue, but also connecting what was happening in Taiwan to large global brands to demonstrate why it should matter to consumers in the west and not just people in Taiwan.

[Brian Baskin]

So who needs to act here? Who does Transparentum, for example, think needs to do something to solve this problem. I know that some fashion industry organizations have signed some documents advocating for the. I guess the Taiwanese government maybe to improve treatment.

[Sarah Kent]

So I think the interesting thing in both the Indian and Taiwan case, but let's talk about Taiwan, is, in looking at these issues, systemic. It's not laying the blame on one individual actor. It's looking for ways to get all of the actors involved to move together. So in Taiwan, very interesting part of this story is that, you know, this issue of recruitment fees is one that, for instance, Patagonia has been talking about for a decade now. You know, it came out in 2015 with this sort of pretty punchy statement acknowledging that it had found this issue in its supply chain, publicizing that recruitment fees were a problem, and then talking about all the things it was trying to do to fix it. Fast forward 10 years on, those efforts have resulted in some progress in the factories Patagonia works with, but nonetheless Transparent has still found the same issues in Patagonia's supply chains and more broadly throughout Taiwan. So without other brands operating in Taiwan coming together and trying to do the same thing, the industry as a whole isn't going to move. And really, manufacturers without regulatory shifts don't have much reason or incentive to change the way they operate to remove the burden of recruitment freeze from workers. Because if workers aren't paying them, then the manufacturers have to pay them.

[Brian Baskin]

And where are the governments of these countries on this?

[Sarah Kent]

So Taiwan's government has made some moves over the last decade to provide some more support for migrant workers, but there aren't many protections really. But I think the Taiwanese government needs to have people advocating for it to change the way it operates or it's not going to change the way it operates.

[Brian Baskin]

And we shouldn't single out the Taiwanese or the Indian governments here. I'm sure all sorts of abuse is happening in US Garment factories. And as you've alluded to here, the real problem is the migrant crisis happening globally that has many causes and many actors, many of which have nothing to do with fashion. So I guess maybe the question is, should fashion be aiming to solve this or is it really just mitigating damage and mitigating harm?

[Sarah Kent]

What a great question. I mean, in some ways these are problems without nice, neat solutions. There isn't a silver bullet here, but definitely steps can be taken to mitigate harm and to move towards a world where these kind of abuses do not happen as commonly. Or at least when they do, it really is because of bad actors who managed to slip through the cracks rather than just a normalized way of operating because we all want, like, cheap stuff.

[Brian Baskin]

We'll be back with more of the debrief right after this.

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[Brian Baskin]

It'S interesting. We we've barely or not at all talked about the role of the consumer here. And I feel like in the past when you've written these stories, that actually has been a bigger part of it. But in this case, a consumer buying ethical clothing with ethical cotton is in the end just as complicit as one who's just buying whatever Shein's putting out.

[Sarah Kent]

But this is also part of the problem, right? If consumers lose trust in what is meant to be a signifier of doing better, then you risk people not caring at all because they throw their hands up and say, well, you know, it's all bad, so what am I going to do? And you really damage efforts to do better because no one's going to pay more for a product that promises to be more responsible and more ethical when they don't believe that it is. They're barely wanting to do it when they do.

[Brian Baskin]

No, I feel that in myself. I think, gosh, if this is what ethical cotton has behind it, it makes you feel very hopeless.

[Sheena Butler Young]

I gotta say, I want to talk about what some of the brands, though, are doing or are not doing. So, like there were brands that were named as having connections to some of the factories in Taiwan, India, Taiwan, Nike, Adidas, Puma, and then in India, Zara, H and M Gap, Amazon, all having connections. And let's not get in the weeds of what they knew and what they didn't know. But all of them are doing something or claim to be doing something. What are some of the efforts?

[Sarah Kent]

I mean, let me just step back from that. Those are some of the brands that were named. I think part of the point here is that if you are sourcing cotton from that part of India, you are probably exposed to this issue. And if you are Sourcing fabrics from Taiwan, you're probably exposed to this issue. So this is not specific to those brands, but, you know, they are big names that were caught in these investigations, and there were many other brands that were also called out. All of those brands that you named are taking action. Not all of the brands that were caught in the investigations are, but of those brands, in both cases, what you've seen, our companies try and bring in industry organizations to help them work as a group rather than individuals. So in Taiwan, what you've seen is the American Apparel and Footwear association and the Fair labor association convening groups of their members to try and engage across the industry in Taiwan. So the AFA and FLA got 50 brands together, not all of whom were involved in this investigation. So this points to an effort to bring in more actors to write to the Taiwanese guy government last year saying that, you know, they'd like some support in addressing and regulating this issue. They organized a trip out to Taiwan late last year for, you know, a group of brands to talk to the Taiwanese textile industry and start engaging on this issue. Because, again, bear in mind, for Taiwanese manufacturers, they're just operating within the bounds of the law in Taiwan, and this is a normal way to operate. And so part of it is finding common ground between the expectations of brands who are dealing with a consumer market that ostensibly doesn't want risks of forced labor in their supply chain and a mode of working that has very large risk of that but is completely normal and legal. And so to start those conversations, and.

[Brian Baskin]

I was pleasantly surprised, I guess I could say that in the case of India, it seems like brands were pretty proactive about responding to the allegations. We can argue about whether they went far enough to address it, but it's not one of the situations where this report comes out and it lands with a thud and everyone just ignores it.

[Sarah Kent]

And I think that's one of the interesting things about the way Transparentum operates as well. Its mission is not just to do these investigations and generate big scandals. You know, the organization was set up to try and galvanize real change. And so I think part of the reason why you've seen that is before these reports were made public, in both cases, the brands who were caught in these investigations have been given about a year of engagement to discuss how they might respond, how they might act. And so, yes, what we're talking about right now is like, oh, my God, how could these things still be happening in the supply chain? But we are also able to talk to some degree about what companies are trying to do to address it, because we have those 12 months of response.

[Brian Baskin]

That'S so interesting who are transparent and like, who's behind that organization?

[Sarah Kent]

So it was set up by an investigative journalist who was writing a lot about modern slavery, wrote a book on the topic and became frustrated that despite all of his coverage, the articles would get published. And then the next day the news moves on and the workers are no better than they were before. And so the organization was established to try and leverage those skills, but in a way that perhaps drove more change.

[Sheena Butler Young]

So, Sarah, I want to talk a little bit about the monetary cost of correcting some of these issues. So for example, in your article, the president of the Taiwan Textile Federation said we need to let more and more mills understand that there are principles that need to be followed, but clients need to consider affordability as well. So in some cases, or in most cases, brands that take up the charge and want to make this a better, more equitable fill in the blank process, they are going to have to incur additional costs for production if they do this or pass that off to the consumer, correct?

[Sarah Kent]

Yes, but it's complicated, right, because it all comes down to how margins in the industry work. But yes, fundamentally, if migrant workers are no longer bearing the cost of recruitment, manufacturers who still want to recruit migrant workers will need to take on that cost. And so if that's $6,000 per worker, that can add up a lot. You know, in the case of this Taiwanese investigation, in most cases, I don't think that the brands have got far enough along in their conversations around remediation to have cost estimates in place. But there was one factory where they had calculated how much it would cost to pay back workers who had paid recruitment fees, and it was $400,000. But then on an ongoing basis, you're then paying this cost regularly to bring in new workers as needed. A couple of things on that. Obviously, a large company has more bargaining power than an individual worker. So theoretically, if you're saying you want to hire 100 migrant workers, you can negotiate with a broker for a better fee rate. So that could bring down the costs. But either way, manufacturers who operate on very thin margins suddenly have this new cost they've taken on. They are going to want to pass that on to their customer. And you know, this is a very cutthroat industry. In a downturn, everything revolves around can I get the cheapest price. And so if a manufacturer is chasing a customer and wants to lock them in and is being pressured on prices, it's Difficult for them to want to advocate for something that's going to increase.

[Sheena Butler Young]

Costs and then you pass that off to the consumer and you say this is an ethical, cotton made thing. And then we've got headlines and then.

[Sarah Kent]

The consumer doesn't believe it.

[Brian Baskin]

Oh no, it's a real snake eating its own tail here for sure. Let's talk about the, the wild card that is Donald Trump here. What has the US Government's role been in some of these areas that we've been discussing? And then how do things like the gutting of USAID affect that?

[Sarah Kent]

Such an interesting question. And I think with so much of what is going on in the US at the moment, there's not a simple answer. Because on the one hand I've spoken to people who said we believe there is opportunity under Trump administration to have much more forceful regulation that forbids goods that may be linked to forced labor coming into the US on the other hand, a lot of what the administration has done so far in terms of doing things like freeze USAID is going to really damage organizations on the ground that help shine a spotlight on these issues and allow us to find out about them in the first place. So as we started out by saying, most brands don't really know where a lot of their raw materials are coming from. It is very easy and convenient to turn a blind eye to issues that might occur so far down the supply chain. Often we only know about them because NGOs or other organizations have gone onto the ground and done this work that is time consuming and expensive to bring it to light. And a lot of the money that might have gone towards that is not going to be available anymore.

[Brian Baskin]

Although it wasn't so much the US As Europe, that's really been the driving force here. Right.

[Sarah Kent]

The EU had been bringing in some very progressive regulation that was meant to make brands much more responsible for issues that happen far down their supply chain and was requiring companies to start really trying to figure out where stuff was coming from and demonstrate that they were taking steps to make sure that things were being produced responsibly. Right down to the raw material level. Those regulations are really under attack. That, you know, there is a shift in the vibe in Europe just like there is in the US Competitiveness rather than social values is the buzzword of the day. And regulation that was meant to make brands more responsible is increasingly just seen as making them less competitive, increasing red tape and it's likely to be watered down.

[Sheena Butler Young]

Is there any consumer ability to drive change here? If I'm a consumer that cares about human rights and labor and other things. I mean, you can put diversity in the same bucket. What power do I have at this point to shop my values? Like, where do you see that going in this conversation?

[Sarah Kent]

Look, I think the consumer always has power and whatever, you know, if something individually is important to you, then it is worth doing the research and to the best of your ability trying to shop places that reflect that whilst acknowledging that in all likelihood they too are just doing the best they can. It's all going to be very flawed. But you know, the amount of consumers who are so dedicated that they're spending their time doing this, we've seen it's a niche. It's like the group of consumers who buy organic food. It exists, it's a market, but it's not the mainstream market. And as long as it's not the mainstream market, I don't think that mainstream brands are going to feel like they have to make the shift to meet consumer needs.

[Brian Baskin]

Let's end on a moment of hope Amid all the darkness that we've been discussing. I think it's not unrelentingly bleak. Right. I mean, there are organizations like Transparentum that are trying new approaches that do seem to be bearing fruit. There have been successes in the past. I was just thinking about one of my first exposures to this issue was Uzbekistan, which was pretty notorious in the 2000s for basically pulling all the kids out of school and sending them to the cotton fields every year. And there was a successful, mostly successful boycott movement that actually changed conditions there. Like these problems can be, if not entirely fixed. Things can get better.

[Sarah Kent]

Yeah. And I think even just the fact that we know that there have been consistent scandals about it, that is progress. It's. It is. These issues are being talked about. A light is being shed on them. And over time I hope that forces movement in action.

[Sheena Butler Young]

So there's always room for hope. I think that's a nice positive note to end on All Things Considered today. Sarah, thank you so much joining us.

[Sarah Kent]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Brian Baskin]

Thank you, Sarah. Please be sure to check out Sarah's articles. Ethical Cotton is being picked by Child Laborers in India and why Can't Fashion Eliminate labor exploitation from its supply [e-mail] these and other stories are available to BMF Professional subscribers only and you can find the links in the episode notes. I'm Brian Baskin.

[Sheena Butler Young]

And I'm Sheena Butler Young. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks so much for joining us. And be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts you've been listening to the Debrief produced by Olivia Davies, mixed and mastered by Eric Brea.

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