The Textile, Garment, Leather and Footwear sector (TGLF) is among the largest sectors in the world economy in monetary and employment terms, and it continues to grow. It employs millions of people world-wide, the majority of them women. As such, it sustains many livelihoods and creates major opportunities for economic development. At the same time, social and environmental abuses are rampant.

The TGLF sector is typically characterised by poor working conditions and workers' rights violations. Particularly in low-income production countries, workers suffer from low wages, long working hours, and limitations to freedom of association and collective bargaining; while both workers and farmers of associated agricultural fibre crops like cotton are at the end of the long complex value chains, obtain very low incomes, and work under conditions of high dependency and with little power or influence. Furthermore, when violations do occur, workers face numerous barriers to access or receive remediation for such harms.

One of the alleged root causes is the marked power asymmetries between suppliers and global buyers. The TGLF value chain has become increasingly buyer-driven over the years, which has led to low prices, increased time pressure, and poor payment terms.2 These conditions fuel and exacerbate the risk of labour rights abuses in TGLF producing factories. The fact that the TGLF value chains are fragmented and multi-layered, lack transparency, and are geographically dispersed, often in countries with fragile institutions and widespread corruption, makes it difficult to tackle these challenges. Lengthy global supply chains and lack of vertical integration (outsourcing of multiple production steps) make transparency and accountability for environmental, social, human rights and governance requirements increasingly complex, facilitate production at the lowest standards globally and increase the impacts of transport.

In parallel, with more clothing being produced, consumed, and thrown away than ever before,3 there is a growing concern about the current linear (take-make-dispose) textile industry and the resulting immense pressure on our environment, and the climate.
The Civil Society proposal for a European Strategy for Sustainable Textile, Garments, Leather and Footwear has the ambition to deliver a guidance to the EU, not only to overcome this crisis, but also to establish the basis for a fairer, more sustainable and more resilient sector, capable of overcoming this and future global crises