Production country
Pakistan
Pakistan’s garment sector is part of a large, export-oriented textile industry with strong cotton-based production. A decentralised, provincial labour framework creates variation in legal minimum wages and enforcement. Key risks include low wages, excessive overtime, limited freedom of association and gender discrimination, particularly affecting workers in precarious employment.
Pakistan’s garment sector is part of a large, vertically integrated textile industry that plays a central role in the country’s export economy. The sector offers strong production capacity in cotton-based textiles, home textiles, knitwear, garments, and denim. Sourcing conditions are shaped by high energy costs, pressure on domestic cotton supply, and increased due diligence expectations from buyers. The legislative framework of Pakistan is complex, as labour regulation and enforcement are largely organised at the provincial level, creating variation in minimum wages, inspection, and implementation across the country. Country risks include low wages, excessive overtime, challenges to freedom of association and gender discrimination. These risks are highest for workers in precarious forms of employment.
A key cotton-based sourcing country
Over 2 million estimated garment workers
65
Factories Fair Wear members source from
14
Fair Wear member brands sourcing from the country
What Fair Wear is doing
How we work locally with partners to address risks and improve working conditions.
Due diligence requires companies to know what is happening in their supply chain. Fair Wear has state of the art risk tools that support brands with identifying and tracking their most urgent risks. In Pakistan, collaboration with a local stakeholder offers extensive risk identification and validation services based on Fair Wear methodologies. Companies can access detailed, stakeholder-validated country risk information per sector risk and request Fair Wear's Onsite Assessments (Full, Modular and Validation). Companies can also request custom HREDD facilitation support, such as verification activities.
Insight only creates change when you act on it. Fair Wear equips brands with a set of established training modules to raise awareness, address root causes and implement mechanisms for prevention, mitigation and remediation. In Pakistan, collaboration with a local stakeholder offers companies access to training based on Fair Wear’s methodologies. Companies can request the Fair Wear Onboarding Training for suppliers and workers, which focuses on awareness-raising on workers' rights and support for social dialogue between workers and management. Moreover, companies can request custom HREDD-training.
Staying ahead of risks means knowing about them before they escalate. Fair Wear's grievance mechanism is available in Pakistan through a local collaboration, ensuring workers can raise concerns in their own language. The mechanism provides an accessible, confidential channel, with findings feeding into Fair Wear's work with brands and suppliers to address root causes.
Fair Wear brings the right people to the table in Pakistan through our stakeholder network. We collaborate with with local and international stakeholders, such as Pakistan ACCORD and Better Work Pakistan, bringing together industry and worker representation to advance working conditions and strengthen social dialogue across the sector.