Report: Silenced – How wage “compliance” is failing workers in Pakistan
Through interviews with 255 garment workers across eight supplier factories and conversations with the auditors themselves, the research found that the problem is not simply widespread labour rights violations. It is that the systems audits rely on to detect violations are systematically failing to hear workers.
Auditors told us that worker testimony is often excluded because findings must be backed by documentary evidence—even where workers consistently report wage theft, excessive undocumented and underpaid hours, intimidation or harassment. Auditors also described how they see suppliers create and manipulate evidence, coach, coerce and threaten workers, and select audit firms they believe will give favourable outcomes.
This is a credibility challenge for fashion’s human rights due diligence model. If workers cannot safely report abuse, and the systems used to monitor supply chains structurally fail to capture their experiences due paperwork being prioritised over people, then compliance cannot be assumed to mean respect for rights.
Worker testimony must become central to due diligence through stronger engagement with trade unions, community-based monitoring, collective bargaining and workplace dialogue that empowers workers to identify risks and shape remedy.
