“Unpacking the forced labour concerns at the heart of Amazon Fashion”, 1 August 2025

LBL carried out a months-long investigation and traced items sold by three sellers – Chums, Ice Cool Fashion, and A2Z 4 Kids – on Amazon Marketplace back to factories in Pakistan. Through interviews with 40 workers, its researchers compiled a litany of alleged labour abuses. Workers reported not being paid national minimum wages and working excessive hours with forced overtime. Workers at a factory in Faisalabad told investigators that in addition to their regular hours of 8am to 5:30pm, they are regularly required to work for an additional two to four hours. In these circumstances, Pakistani law requires companies to pay double, however the workers alleged they were paid a single rate.

…Amazon responded to the LBL report by launching an investigation and saying it takes claims like these “incredibly seriously”. A spokesman said: “Providing safe, healthy and fair working conditions is a requirement of doing business with Amazon in every country where we operate.” Sellers need to meet Amazon’s standards, she added, even when those go further than the law.

…None of the three brands highlighted responded to a request for comment from LBL. However, a manager at one of the factories in Pakistan denied the allegations to The i Paper. He said: “We will face the authorities, we will fight, and we will prove that we are innocent.”

…Campaigners warn that this expanded reach for small brands comes with a rising risk of supply chain exploitation. (…) “We’re creating impunity for tiny fashion brands who have no policies and hidden suppliers,” she explains. “But in a sense, we’re not laying this at the door of the sellers. The fact is that Amazon has deliberately set up a business model that is creating this risk but is not addressing it.”

…In response to these claims (though Amazon did not respond to LBL’s request for more info on its third party supply chains), LBL’s report indicates that Amazon sellers have to sign a ‘Business Solutions Agreement’ that includes the phrasing “no Unit is or will be produced or manufactured, in whole or in part, by child labor or by convict or forced labor.” And in its Modern Slavery Risk Assessment for 2023, Amazon does state that, “if we have reason to suspect products do not meet our Standards, we may request evidence of due diligence from selling partners to demonstrate products were manufactured in accordance with our Standards.”

… Christie Miedema, a campaign coordinator at the Clean Clothes Campaign, says smaller brands are “relatively immune to public campaigning as they will find an audience to buy them on platforms like Amazon”. This “makes it harder to get justice for supply chain violations”.

…As well as Amazon, there are several other major players in the marketplace ecosystem. Shein requires its marketplace sellers to comply with its code of conduct, which “strictly prohibits forced labour and child labour” and requires minimum standards wages and working hours. It has previously admitted to finding abuses in its own supply chain and, it says, acted on them.