Report warns of exploitation in global shoe industry

A report published by Cividep India and British NGOs, Homeworkers Worldwide and Labour Behind the Label, has warned that India’s expanding shoe industry is dependent on the exploitation of female home workers who earn less than the minimum wage and lack legal rights. While India is the world's eighth largest exporter of footwear, exporting over 200m shoes in 2014, the problem is not restricted to India; campaigners warn that homeworkers are exploited throughout the shoe industry globally and are calling on companies to scrutinise their supply chains.

Our new report, ‘Stitching Our Shoes’, uncovers the grim reality of homeworkers in India, the invisible female workforce who stitch the leather uppers of shoes bound for sale in the UK.

The shoe industry is an immense global business, with over 24 billion pairs produced last year alone, equating to three pairs of shoes made for every single person living. The UK is a key part of this industry as one of the largest footwear markets in the world with, on average, each person in the UK buying five pairs of shoes per year.

Complex global supply chains mean that tracing a pair of shoes from the shop floor through the factories, homes and tanneries in which they originated is virtually impossible. A lack of regulations allows this multi-billion pound industry to continue to operate without transparency. Issues with workers safety and poverty wages abound in an industry built on exploitation, however those at the bottom of the chain are homeworkers. These are the ‘invisible’ women who stitch leather uppers in their home, earning next to nothing, with no security or benefits.

There are thousands of women working as homeworkers in the leather shoes industry in India alone. Stitching just one pair of uppers could take her up to one hour. For this work she will earn the equivalent of less than 10 pence per pair of leather shoes, far from a minimum wage let alone a living wage. This is back-breaking labour-intensive work that requires the precision of hand stitching instead of a machine. The work often leaves women with health issues and complaints such as hand numbness, eye strain, back problems, and skin rashes from chemicals used to dye the leather are all commonplace, and unlike their factory counterparts, homeworkers have no health insurance to allow them to seek medical attention.

Homeworkers receive a bundle of leather uppers to be stitched by a factory middleman each morning. The middleman returns that evening to collect them and to pay her piece rate poverty wages for each pair she stitches. There is no guarantee there will be more work the next day. They provide the flexible and cheap labour demanded by the shoe industry.