In Panipat, 1m tons of used clothing a year are turned into products for global brands, but dangerous machinery and few safeguards mean life-changing injuries are common

For three months, Suraj Kumar’s job was to feed discarded clothes into shredding machines in Panipat, an industrial city in the north Indian state of Haryana. Clothes discarded in the US, Canada and Europe arrive in the city to be torn back into fibres and spun into yarn, feeding a textile recycling industry that supplies markets across the world.

Suraj, 19, had travelled from West Bengal state to work in Panipat’s factories, following his cousins and friends who had already found jobs there. He hoped to earn enough to send money home to his parents. But in late August, an electrical short circuit in the machine propelled him into the shredding mechanism. The accident crushed both arms.

Police fired teargas and stun grenades at protesters as garment factory workers across Bangladesh took to the streets to demonstrate for higher wages. Hundreds of garment factories have closed due to the unrest this week during a crucial production period for spring and summer export orders, raising concerns about shipment delays

After a 21-year-old employee was raped and killed by her supervisor in 2021, campaigners ensured conditions at the factory were overhauled. But its order book never recovered

Ask the women working at Natchi Apparels in the historic city of Dindigul in Tamil Nadu and many will describe the turnaround in their working conditions in the garment factory over the past five years as extraordinary.

On 5 January 2021 the decomposing body of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 21-year-old Dalit woman who was an employee of Natchi, then an H&M Group supplier, was found on a strip of farmland a few miles from her village after she failed to return home following a shift on New Year’s Day.

Women gather outside factories hoping for work as the economy struggles under US export taxes

Every morning at 7am, women gather outside clothing factories in Maseru, the capital of the southern African mountain kingdom of Lesotho, hoping to be offered work. However, since Donald Trump imposed swingeing global tariffs in April 2025, those opportunities have been fewer and farther between.

Moleboheng Matsepe lost her full-time job sewing sports leggings for the California brand Fabletics in 2023. She was initially able to pick up three-month contracts, but has not had any work since September.