Your Donated Clothes May Be Killing Africa’s Fashion Industry
In Ghana, these secondhand retail points are known as “bend down boutiques” in reference to the fact that buyers have to stoop to browse the bins of clothes for sale, spread out on the ground. Ghanaians call the clothes in the bins “obroni we wu” or “white man’s deads” and in Togo, they are also nicknamed “dead yovo” or “dead white person” for their assumed former white owners. But in Kenya and Tanzania, they are known for their sheer volume — “mitumba” or “bales” — a good indication of their impact.
Can't deny that a flood of donated clothes is going to be hard on local textile workers, but it's good for the white-man's-dead merchants. And as much as I would rather imagine the locals wearing beautiful kangas, if they prefer to wear inexpensive Nike T-shirts I am not going to be the one to stop them.