Cottons Hidden Voices: Stories from the makers of your clothes

The UK fashion sector is worth in excess of £26 billion, it employs at least 800,000 people and is a major contributor to the UK's reputation for a creativity and innovation. However, production of UK fashion is highly dependent on global supply chains where workers in the Global South in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India and Sri Lanka provide the labour to grow cotton, spin yarns, knit and weave fabrics and ultimately make the garments we wear in the UK.

These supply chains have been associated with major ethical issues which can include various forms of discrimination, poor pay, bonded labour, child labour and dangerous working conditions. These issues are now best described by the umbrella term 'modern slavery'. But the fashion industry also provides employment for over 250 million workers, and for many workers fashion supply chains offer an opportunity to alleviate poverty, access education and develop social mobility for themselves and for their families.

Therefore, the challenge for designers, brands, policy makers and the UN SDGs is how to eradicate issues of modern slavery, while retaining the positive aspects that fashion can provide for workers in the Global South.

Eradicating modern slavery and creating sustainable supply chains is vital for the future of the UK fashion industry and for the planet. However, too often policies, initiatives and discussions aiming to improve sustainability and address modern slavery issues fail to understand and accommodate the complexity of these supply chains, the diversity of actors and the voices of workers involved in the journey of fashion from cotton farms to UK wardrobes.

This project will describe this journey and its complexity using the voices of workers in the supply chain. Through collaboration with workers in India, it will create visual, audio, written and digital content that brings their hidden voices to stakeholders in the UK. By collapsing the cultural and geographical divides between producers and consumers, this content aims to facilitate dialogue about the connections between the clothes consumers in the UK wear and the workers who make them.

These human stories will help designers, consumers, educators and policy makers improve their knowledge and awareness of the global fashion industry.

The innovative content will be co-designed and delivered through collaboration with Leeds Museums and Galleries, the largest local authority-run museum service in England with one of the most significant multidisciplinary collections in the UK. This will be supported by the Public Engagement and Arts Educational Engagement Teams at the University of Leeds and the AHRC funded Future Fashion Factory.

The project also supports the University's commitment to public engagement with its research and to the UN SDG accord.

This Follow-On project builds on a previously funded AHRC project 'Impact of Covid-19 on management to eradicate modern slavery from global supply chains' (RC Grant reference: AH/V009206/1). This project, a collaboration between the University of Leeds and the Goa Institute of Management, India, explored the impact of the Covid on modern slavery risks for workers in fashion supply chains from the perspective of UK consumption and Indian production.

The research project highlighted how solutions for sustainable fashion must reflect the priorities of the supply chain, and how established Global North views of fashion have ignored Global South perspectives. This has implication for the delivery of the UN SDGs, particularly for following SDGs which are the focus for this Follow-On project:

- SDG 5 Gender Equality; recognising the majority of workers in fashion are female,

- SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth; the fashion industry is a route for poverty alleviation and GDP growth in the Global South,

- SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production; understanding the link between fashion consumption in the UK and production in India.