Why has MADE-BY developed this policy?

The production of a garment is a labour intensive process. In order to minimise costs, production is often located in countries where labour costs are low. Due to the level of development of these countries, worker rights are often poorly protected. In principle, MADE-BY believes that the protection of worker rights is a local responsibility, however when governments, institutions and employers fail to organise the protection of workers, social auditing is necessary to protect workers.

In developed countries, where government effectiveness and institutional capacity is on sufficient level, it is not desirable nor efficient to do social audits. MADE-BY has therefore developed a list of countries that can be classified as ‘low risk’, where production factories in these countries do not require social audits to be carried out. This list is reviewed and updated on an annual basis.

Methodology

The following four indicators were used to determine whether a country can be classified as ‘low risk’:

The Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) – this was selected as the first key indicator since it not only measures the economic development of a country in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, but it also measures to what extent a country is able to use wealth to improve quality of life.

Members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – this was the second criteria considered, as members share a commitment to democratic government and the market economy.

Members of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) – this was the third criteria, as the ILO is a UN related agency that seeks to promote social justice and internationally recognised human and labour rights. All member states are obliged to respect, promote and realise the principles contained in the core ILO Conventions.

Country reports of the US Department of State were checked – this was the final criteria for any countries that had not ratified all core conventions.

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