104. The Curious Case of Leicester Part 2: A Community Perspective

Shaista Jakhura is a former garment worker who, in the recent years, has been engaging with apparel workers and the local community in her roles with Leicester City Council, Hope for Justice, and most recently as funding manager for the Garment and Textile Workers Trust.

After getting married and moving to the UK around 32 years ago, Shaishta’s entry point into apparel production in Leceister was on the production floor. A single parent eager to build a better life for her family, Shaista ultimately left her job on the production floor to pursue higher education. She went on to work as a primary school teacher when in 2020, her career came full circle and she found herself working in community engagement for the apparel sector in Leicester. She shares her thoughts on why labour rights abuses happen in Leicester, what kind of support and solutions are needed, and how recent scrutiny has impacted people on the production floor.

This episode is part of "The Curious Case of Leicester" mini-series. While legislation is often seen as the solution to fashion’s sustainability issues, Leicester’s apparel industry presents a paradox: despite being in a developed country, in a city acclaimed for its strong governance, labour rights abuses have persisted. This series explores how such abuses continue and what this means for using legislation as a tool to address fashion's sustainability challenges globally.

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The Curious Case of Leicester has been supported by Lancaster University Management School and the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, working in partnership with Justice In Fashion CIC, a UK-based not-for-profit that works to address imbalances of power and resources across the fashion industry supply chain.

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