Thrown Away Thrice: The global second-hand clothes trade expires on the beaches of Africa

Lionel Stanbrook

World Economics, 2019, vol. 20, issue 4, 43-48

Abstract: Thousands of garment-making businesses throughout West Africa have been destroyed over the past few generations by his shabby international exploitation which was been hand in glove with the elimination of traditional garment-making businesses by aggressive European, US, and Chinese clothes manufacturing in factories located in Africa over the same period. The grim result is that Africans have fewer choices in domestically made clothes now than twenty, thirty, or even fifty years ago. Even the famous waxed cloth pagnes (kaftans or bou-bous) which seem quintessentially West African, are very largely imported from Europe (the largest production company is the Dutch VLISCO) although there remain important pockets of original African textile production, although unfortunately with products that are beyond the economic means of ordinary Africans. The shabby value chain in second-hand clothes starts in glitzy shopping malls in the most developed countries, with excessive and unnecessary purchases of clothes by consumers hungry for a new look.

Date: 2019
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