Pakistan’s textile and garment industry is facing renewed scrutiny following a report by the UK-based labour-rights organisation Labour Behind the Label. Based on interviews with 255 workers at eight factories, the report alleges unlawful wages, excessive working hours, workplace intimidation and ineffective grievance mechanisms. Such allegations deserve serious investigation, particularly where workers fear retaliation for reporting violations. However, evidence gathered from a limited number of factories should not automatically be presented as representative of Pakistan’s entire export-oriented textile industry, which consists of thousands of enterprises operating at vastly different levels of formality, capacity and international exposure.
The more accurate picture is neither one of perfect compliance nor of universal exploitation. Pakistan’s leading exporters have spent years strengthening labour governance, occupational safety, environmental management and supply-chain traceability. These improvements are being driven not only by domestic regulations but also by international buyers, the International Labour Organization, the UN Global Compact and the European Union’s GSP+ framework. Pakistan’s continued access to GSP+ requires the effective implementation of international conventions covering labour rights, human rights, environmental protection and good governance.
Compliance is therefore not merely a public-relations exercise and it has become a commercial requirement directly connected with market access and export competitiveness
The strongest counterweight to sweeping allegations is the Better Work Pakistan Synthesis Report covering 2022–2025. Better Work, a partnership between the ILO and the International Finance Corporation, assessed 87 participating factories during 2025. Only four factories, or 4.6 per cent, were found non-compliant with minimum-wage or piece-rate requirements, while two factories, or 2.3 per cent, were non-compliant on overtime wages. These findings cannot prove that every Pakistani factory meets the required standards, but they do not support a blanket claim that wage and overtime violations are systemic across internationally engaged export factories.
At the same time, responsible industry advocacy must not misuse these statistics to dismiss legitimate concerns. The Better Work assessment also identified substantial deficiencies in social-security coverage, employment documentation, workplace protection and occupational safety. The report itself acknowledges that factory assessments can struggle to detect concealed violations and that binary compliance indicators cannot fully capture the severity of workers’ experiences. Pakistan’s industry should therefore treat criticism as an opportunity to strengthen worker-centred monitoring rather than relying exclusively on paperwork, scheduled audits and management-controlled interviews.
There is nevertheless significant evidence of institutional progress. Interloop has achieved 44 per cent female representation on its Board and 25 per cent representation in executive leadership while investing in education, employee wellbeing, organic cotton and regenerative agriculture. Its organic cotton programme has supported the transition towards more sustainable cultivation practices, illustrating how labour welfare and environmental responsibility can be incorporated from farm to finished product.
Such measures reflect a wider shift among major exporters from basic factory certification towards measurable environmental, social and governance performance
Similar initiatives can be observed elsewhere. Soorty has partnered with the Network of Organizations Working for Persons with Disabilities Pakistan through its PRISM programme, training more than 100 people with hearing and speech disabilities and creating pathways towards sustainable employment. Sapphire has pursued Higg Facility Environmental Module certification, zero-liquid-discharge initiatives and chemical-management improvements. Across the sector, companies including Gul Ahmed, Nishat Mills, Liberty Mills, Feroze1888, Crescent Bahuman, Kamal, Masood Textile and Utopia Industries have introduced combinations of anti-harassment policies, grievance mechanisms, worker training, healthcare, childcare, scholarships, disability inclusion and workplace-safety programmes.
These interventions are commercially consequential. A Better Work survey conducted in February 2026 found that international buyers increasingly consider labour compliance, environmental performance and traceability alongside price and product quality. Although the survey covered only 12 buyers, 33 per cent expected to increase sourcing from Pakistan over the following two to three years, while another 25 per cent anticipated maintaining existing sourcing levels.
Nearly half indicated a strong likelihood of expanding sourcing if Pakistani suppliers substantially improved compliance, quality, competitiveness and traceability
The central challenge is therefore not to choose between criticism and defence. Pakistan must acknowledge violations wherever they occur while rejecting the unsupported extrapolation of individual cases to the entire industry. Exporters should expand confidential grievance channels, off-site worker interviews, digital wage records, bank-based salary payments, unannounced inspections and independent remediation systems. International brands must also accept responsibility. Unrealistic prices, compressed delivery schedules and repeated demands for supplier discounts can contribute to overtime and wage pressure, even while buyers publicly demand perfect compliance.
Pakistan’s textile industry is moving from conventional compliance towards sustainability-based competitiveness. Its future will depend on whether leading practices become sector-wide norms, including among smaller suppliers and subcontractors. The appropriate response to critical reports is neither denial nor reputational surrender. It is transparent evidence, independent verification and continuous reform. Pakistan already possesses exporters capable of meeting demanding international standards. The next objective must be to ensure that every worker, at every level of the supply chain, experiences those commitments as workplace reality rather than merely reading them in a sustainability report.
