The global fashion and retail industry’s reliance on producing quick-turnaround goods at a low cost through outsourcing and complex, globalised supply chains has allowed forced labour to thrive, workers’ rights advocates warn, claiming that major fashion brands profiting from the model seem reluctant to change.

The apparel sector employs over 60 million workers worldwide, according to the World Bank Group. And while 97 percent of fashion and retail brands have codes of conduct and corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards, such policies are neither effective in preventing forced labour nor in ensuring remedy outcomes for workers, according to advocacy group KnowTheChain.

KnowTheChain’s 2021 Apparel and Footwear Benchmark Report recently ranked 37 of the world’s biggest fashion companies on a scale of 0 to 100 on their efforts to fight forced labour, with 100 representing the best practices.

The group identified allegations of forced labour in the supply chains of 54 percent of companies it examined.

“What stood out to us is that the average score for the sector was 41 out of 100, which constitutes a significant failure to address risks,” Felicitas Weber, project director at KnowTheChain, told Al Jazeera.

The report also found that the world’s largest luxury brands are among the worst offenders in addressing the worse forms of exploitation in their supply chains, with an average score of 31 out of 100.

French luxury goods company Kering (owner of the Alexander McQueen and Gucci labels) scored 41 out of 100, while LVMH (owner of the Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton labels) scored 19 out of 100. Tapestry (owner of the Coach and Kate Spade labels), assessed for the first time this year, scored 16 out of 100.

Read the full article about fashion brands' labor abuses by Radmilla Suleymanova at Al Jazeera.