2021-2022 HWW Bi-Annual Report

During the period this annual report covers, Covid 19 continued to cast a long shadow over our work, as periodic lockdowns continued in both the UK and Asia for much of 2021, and non-essential travel and events remained curtailed for much of 2022.

This inevitably impacted on homeworkers’ livelihoods, as many shops and factories were closed for lengthy periods, with knock-on effects on the availability of work further down supply chains where homeworkers are most commonly located.

Our Director Lucy Brill continues to lead the organisation, ably supported by Peter Williams, our Labour Rights policy consultant, and a team of great trustees. Lucy also joined the ETI Board as a representative from the NGO Caucus in June 2021, and participates actively in their activities on gender, the fashion industry and emerging work on transitions and futures.

During 2021-2022 the focus of much of our work remained on the four-year Hidden Homeworkers Project, led by Traidcraft (recently rebranded as Transform Trade) and HomeNet South Asia, and co-funded by the European Commission. This project was set up to improve the situation of homeworkers producing clothes, footwear and homewares for global supply chains in India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Through the Hidden Homeworkers project we’ve also made links with other multistakeholder initiatives, including Germany’s Sustainable Textile Partnership, the Fairwear Foundation in the Netherlands and the Fair Labor Association in the US.