Where am I Wearing?: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes

Boycotting is a form of protest that involves refusing to engage with a person, company, or country. It is a way of expressing ethical or political disapproval. In the context of the garment industry, boycotting can take the form of sanctions, whereby a country refuses to trade with another nation or business, or consumer activism, where individuals abstain from buying products from a particular source.

Timmerman discusses boycotting as a means of pressuring companies to improve garment workers’ rights. He acknowledges that this can be an effective way of targeting big brands that exploit overseas workers in the manufacturing process. However, he also describes the adverse effects that such well-intentioned protests can have on the workers they seek to protect. He illustrates this point by describing the impact when American consumers boycotted clothing made in Bangladesh due to the country’s use of child labor. The boycott led to new manufacturing regulations banning the employment of children under 14 in garment factories. However, since the poorest families needed their children to earn an income, underage garment workers either moved to other unregulated sectors or resorted to begging on the streets. Timmerman uses the example of boycotting to emphasize the importance of understanding the economic context of the countries that make people’s clothes.