On 2 June 2025, the ITUC published its Global Rights Index, assessing the state of workers’ rights worldwide. Most garment and textile producing countries continue to rank 5, meaning no guarantee of trade union rights.
On 2 June 2025, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) published its 2025 Global Rights Index, which evaluates 151 countries against 97 indicators derived from ILO Conventions.
Countries are rated on a scale from 1 to 5+, with 1 being the best rating, indicating sporadic violations of rights, and 5+ rating means there is no guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law. Indicators include violence against workers, trade unionist deaths, violations of the right to strike, to collective bargaining, to establish and join a trade union, to have access to justice, to free speech and assembly, and to civil liberties.
The ITUC also lists the 10 worst countries for trade unions, which include: Bangladesh, Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Tunisia, and Türkiye.
Across the index, most key countries that produce for the garment and footwear sector are rated 5 – meaning “no guarantee of rights” or 4 – meaning “systematic violations of rights.” The tables below show the ratings for the top five clothing-exporting countries and the top five textile-exporting countries, based on WTO data. None of these ratings have changed since the previous (2023) Index. NB: These are country ratings and are not specific to the garment and footwear sector.
Table 1: ITUC ranking of the 5 top clothing-exporting countries
Country | Rating |
China | 5 |
Bangladesh | 5 |
Vietnam | 4 |
Türkiye | 5 |
India | 5 |
Table 2: ITUC ranking of the 5 top textile-exporting countries
Country | Rating |
China | 5 |
India | 5 |
Türkiye | 5 |
United States of America | 4 |
Vietnam | 4 |