While garment workers reported GBVH on a daily basis before the pandemic, their experiences of GBVH at work intensified with successive COVID-19 waves, including reports of routine physical and verbal abuse, discrimination and unfair dismissal for pregnancy, widespread wage theft, lack of protection from COVID-19 and intensified work rates with inhumane and mandatory overtime, leading to exhaustion and increased accidents.

This report reveals how the fashion business model, which prioritises short-term profit, combined with inadequate government regulation and damaging patriarchal norms, creates and sustains the conditions for systemic and widespread GBVH in fashion supply chains.

The findings demonstrate that reliance on a voluntary framework (codes of conduct, social audits and compliance statements) to protect women garment workers from violence and exploitation is insufficient and brands must be held legally accountable for the treatment of the women workers who make their clothes and profits. This is possible through mandatory human rights due diligence legislation, and enforceable supply chain agreements that commit brands to addressing GBVH in their supply chains.