The Flip Side of Fashion: Used Clothing Exports to the Third World

Abstract

Since the early 1970s, western countries have increasingly recycled their second-hand clothes by exporting to the Third World. In response, some LDC governments have banned used clothing imports to protect their domestic textile industries. This article, after reviewing the structure and evolution of world used clothing trade, examines the consequences for Africa's largest importer, Rwanda. In this low-income country, with its small domestic textile industry, displacement is minimal and imported used clothing offers a modest but rare policy lever for directly increasing national income as well as incomes of the rural poor. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.