New Zealand Women's Law Journal - Te Aho Kawe Kaupapa Ture a ngā Wāhine, 2022, 7: 77-112

The world as we know it has grown increasingly dependent on the “fast fashion” garment industry. Consumers continue to demand the same goods at ever-decreasing prices, prompting manufacturers to cut corners when it comes to due diligence processes, and in turn rely on the products of modern slavery.
Widespread use of modern slavery hidden in supply chains has become one of the most serious human rights issues of our time. This issue disproportionately effects women and girls, with many garment workers being women and girls
in low-income countries. This article dissects this issue further by investigating the intersection between modern slavery in the garment supply chain and its gendered dimensions. This is an important question to ponder given that New Zealand has no due diligence mechanisms in place, despite the majority
of its garment supply being sourced from overseas suppliers, and a public and parliamentary interest in establishing a framework to regulate such supply. The following discusses the policy aspects of the gendered issue at hand, followed by
comparisons of weak-form and hard-form international due diligence models. Ultimately, this article concludes that, as a starting point, New Zealand should adopt a hard-form approach, like the French model of due diligence. New
Zealand should then go further with its legislative framework and strive to set a “gold-standard” in combatting modern slavery, by addressing the problems that current hard-form models have. (Author's abstract). Record #8218