A vendor sells secondhand cloths
at a stall in the busy Gikomba market in Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 18,
2014. Shaded by ragged squares of canvas, amid choking dust and the
noise of hawkers, shoppers can turn up Tommy Hilfiger jeans or a
Burberry jacket for a fraction of the price in London’s Regent
Street or New York’s Fifth Avenue.
Such imports have
devastated the local clothing industries and led the region to rely
far too heavily on the West.
Clearing your closet of last
season’s gently worn clothes and donating them to an aid group
probably makes you feel pretty good. After all, you may be
helping someone in need and breathing life into items that might
otherwise decompose in a landfill.
But a number of countries in
East Africa are fed up with the onslaught of secondhand items they
receive from Western nonprofits and wholesalers, and want to ban
such imports altogether.
In 2014, a handful of East
African countries imported more than $300 million worth of secondhand
clothing from the United States and other wealthy
countries. The used items have created a robust market in East
Africa and thereby a decent amount of jobs. But experts say the
vast amount of these imports have devastated local clothing industries and led
the region to rely far too heavily on the West.
However, the law is unlikely to pass. There is resistance from
the U.S., which unloads hordes of secondhand clothes all over the
world, and from sellers in East Africa whose livelihood
depends on these shipments, as well as from experts who think an
outright ban won’t be enough for these countries to restore
production at home.
Proponents of the ban say it has
the potential to help empower East African economies. “[T]he
region ... is ready to transition itself into an industrial
bloc through a higher level of production quality and
manufacturing practices,” Betty Maina, Kenya’s principal secretary
in the Ministry of EAC, told newspaper The East
African.
There is also hope that a ban
will instill a new sense of pride in the
region’s people, since “no one goes around proudly showing off”
someone else’s discards, noted Joseph Rwagatare, a columnist for
The New Times, a Rwanda-based news outlet.
Once these discarded clothes hit
East African shores, they sell for extremely low prices: For
example, a pair of used jeans can be as little as $1.50 in the
Gikomba Market, East Africa’s biggest secondhand clothing market,
located in Nairobi, Kenya.
Rock-bottom prices make locally made clothes look
too expensive by comparison, Joseph Nyagari of the African
Cotton & Textiles Industries Federation told Think Progress
last year. “The average cost of a secondhand garment is
between five and 10 percent of a new garment [made in Kenya], so
[local industries] can’t compete,” he said.
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SIMON MAINA via Getty
Images
A shopper looks at football
shoes displayed in Gikomba Market, East Africa’s biggest secondhand
clothing market, on July 10, 2014, in Nairobi, Kenya.
SIMON MAINA via Getty
Images
A man samples secondhand clothes
(locally known as mitumba) at the Gikomba open-air market on June
25, 2012, in Nairobi.
In the early 1990s, Kenya had
about 110 large-scale garment manufacturers. By 2006, that number
dropped to 55, the study found.
Fast-forward 10 years, and East
Africa is still limited in its production of clothing and
textiles. Kenya currently has just 15
textile mills, according to Fashion Revolution, a U.K.-based
group that promotes sustainable clothing
manufacturing. The Uganda Manufacturers Associations has
about 30 garment and footwear producers among its members ― but
“this is not enough to satisfy the domestic market,” according to
the Overseas Development Institute, a United Kingdom-based think
tank.
Secondhand sport jerseys are
displayed at a stall in the busy Gikomba market in Nairobi, Sept.
24, 2014.
Nevertheless, one U.S. ambassador has already expressed
concern about the secondhand import ban, according to the Daily
Monitor.
Deborah Malac, U.S. Ambassador
to Uganda, met with Rebecca Kadaga, speaker of the Parliament, to
discuss the ban. She warned that enacting it would “negatively
impact” the benefits Uganda gets from the African Growth
and Opportunity Act, which aims to expand U.S. trade and investment with
sub-Saharan Africa in order to stimulate economic growth in the
region. That law also gives African countries duty-free access to the U.S. apparel
market.To qualify and remain eligible, each
country must make an effort to improve its
rule of law, human rights and respect for core labor
standards.
It makes sense that the U.S.
would push back against the secondhand clothing ban, considering
that used clothing is a lucrative industry involving multiple
sectors.
Uganda alone imported 1,261 tons
of worn clothing and other items from the U.S. last year, according
to the United Nations Comrade Database. And
secondhand garments make up 81
percent of all clothing purchases there.
The exporters who have the most
to lose will likely put up a fight.Suppliers
like Global
Clothing Industries, for example, solely send and ship
used clothing, shoes and other items overseas. GCI exports to 40
countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North and South
America.
Even nonprofits like Oxfam and
Salvation Army aren’t giving away secondhand clothes for free. When
supporters drop off unwanted goods, those organizations often
deliver donated clothing to the developing
world and sell them to traders. They, in turn, sell the items in
their local markets, according to The Guardian.
Neil
Mockford via Getty Images
Welsh
model Imogen Thomas sighted leaving her home to donate some clothes
to Oxfam, before shopping at Tesco on June 3, 2011, in London,
England.
Many local traders are
vehemently opposed to the proposed legislation as
well.
“Just let them dare,” Elizabeth, who sells
women’s dresses in a downtown Nairobi market, told The Economist in
March. “How could they! We will remove our clothes, we will
demonstrate in the streets.”
In Nairobi’s bustling Gikomba
market, a trader can make 1,000 Kenyan shillings (about $10) a day
selling secondhand clothes, a decent living. Many people in the
area get by on about a tenth of that, according to The
Economist.
However, the secondhand industry
is rife with uncertainty, and traders have little control over the
available clothing. Much of it is in poor condition and the western
sizes often don’t fit customers well.
Reuters Photographer /
Reuters
Kenyans pick through secondhand
clothes at the vast Gikomba street market.
Some experts doubt that banning
imported secondhand clothes alone will revitalize the local
industry in the region.
Even if the region were to ramp
up its production, its products wouldn’t necessarily be affordable
and would mostly hurt poorer citizens, according to Andrew Brooks,
author of Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion
and Second-hand Clothes.
Furthermore, the proposed ban
wouldn’t block imports of new clothes, which would be more expensive than used clothes, but still
cheaper than locally produced items, Brooks wrote in The Guardian
earlier this year.
For a ban to work, Brooks
suggests introducing it gradually, and taxing secondhand clothing
imports to help subsidize local production efforts.
“If East African leaders want to
do more than maintain the status quo they need to take bold decisions,” Brooks
wrote, “even if this means sometimes taking decisions that might be
unpopular with international advocates of free trade.”
Given that the proposed ban
probably won’t become law, there are others who argue that Western
consumers need to find more responsible ways to dispose of their
barely worn items.
“We need to find better uses for that ‘going-out
top’ bought for $15 and worn only twice,” Kelsey Halling,
director of impact for Thread International, a group that
repurposes garbage, wrote in an op-ed for Sustainable Brands.
“Places such as Uganda, and Haiti, and India shouldn’t have to be -
and very soon may choose not to be - responsible for our
excess.”
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