The Aftermath of Uganda’s Secondhand Clothing Ban

10.05.2023

(as told to Daphne Chouliaraki Milner)

A ban on imported waste is not the answer to redeveloping our local textile industry, urges Kampala-based designer Bobby Kolade. Strategic support and investment in our local communities of craftspeople are.

Uganda is completely dependent on the import of textiles. In fact, secondhand clothes comprise over 80% of all purchases in the country.

We’re not just talking about clothes. We’re talking about bedsheets, towels, tea towels, undergarments—all of which are imported. We are very dependent on the secondhand clothing supply chain, and it’s shown no signs of reducing. So, when in August, President Yoweri Museveni announced a national ban on secondhand clothing imports, effective September 1, it came as a shock.

The ban was announced at the opening of the Sino-Uganda Industrial Park, a national industrial park that is reportedly home to two or three new Chinese textile producers. But we, the general public, don’t know what they’re producing. My personal research led me to conclude that one of them is producing socks using poly fibers that are imported into the country—an import that President Museveni has welcomed. Yet this contradicts the promise of responsible, local manufacturing; of protecting our climate and our environment by, for instance, prioritizing regional craft and the development of natural fibers.

Let me be clear: banning the import of secondhand clothes is not the answer to redeveloping our local textile industry. The solution lies in supporting local textile initiatives and community efforts that are already functioning on the ground. We need to reimagine the fashion system—because copying the fast fashion model won’t help. The argument goes that banning secondhand clothing imports will help the local industry grow. But, in reality, it will open up a space for brands to import extremely low-quality clothes and textiles made primarily of poly fibers by underpaid people mostly from Southeast Asia into Uganda.

It’s true that, over the years, the quality of what we find in bales, at the center for secondhand clothing, and at Owino Market—the largest market in Kampala—has deteriorated over time. As a child I would find better quality clothes at Owino Market than I do now. And this is reflective of what’s happening on a global fast fashion scale. But it doesn’t mean our dependence on secondhand clothing has reduced. The number of people who are both indirectly and directly involved in the secondhand clothing supply chain in Uganda has reached four million, according to statistics provided by the Uganda Dealers in Used Clothing and Shoes Association.

In other words—the industry is so strong, and so necessary at this time, that it would be impossible to dismantle it overnight. Weeks after the ban supposedly came into effect, imports are still entering the country. It’s a long process to get a container from the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom or United States all the way to Uganda. Orders are placed well in advance, and we can’t ask that the ship carrying the containers turn around. It would take months and months to actually enforce the ban.

The textile solutions that are coming out of our communities are genius. And that inspires me to believe that there is a future in the alternative textiles we’re producing.

With that said, there is a sense of anticipation because we don’t know if—and how—this ban will be enforced. The truth is that Ugandans have, over the past few decades, just learned to relax. It’s one thing to announce a law, another is to implement it. One month on from when the ban was announced, and we haven’t felt the effects of it at all. In fact, right now we have people delivering sacks of denim from Owino Market to the studio. If I ask them about the ban, they just shrug it off because it seems obscene. It’s not even a possibility for them. Economically, it would decimate a whole part of downtown Kampala.

This is very much a political tool. Emotional topics are utilized by leaders worldwide to make headlines. In this case, if you publicly declare a ban on secondhand clothes, it becomes a story of the underdog fighting the big guys by banning wasteful imports. But the reality on the ground is that it’s not possible. This is also why we, at Buzigahill, haven’t changed our business model.

The whole idea behind Buzigahill was that we won’t necessarily work with secondhand clothes forever because we do believe in growing natural fibers and supporting local textile production. We have started introducing handwoven pieces and accessories, but it’s not yet at the stage where we feel like it could be the main source of revenue—or even build the main chunk of our drops. But there is a future in everything that we’re able to grow in Uganda, and that requires recognition and investment: bamboo, hemp, cotton, silk. Fibers can also be made from Ugandan pineapples. Local communities have learned to upcycle, recycle and reuse. And it’s time to invest in those communities to see how we can develop fiber-to-fiber techniques as well as our local textile industries that create materials using waste.

There is hope. The textile solutions that are coming out of our communities are genius. And that inspires me to believe that there is a future in the alternative textiles we’re producing. But there is a lack of adequate resources for us to scale such solutions, and a lack of reliable infrastructure and power supply. There’s a lack of quality because of no investment, and a lack of professionalism towards one another. On so many levels, it is extremely difficult to break out of this system. There are days when I believe that it’s the generation after mine that will manage to reinvent the wheel.