Agrégateur de flux

Die Ankündigung erfolgt nur wenige Stunden, nachdem US-Präsident Donald Trump Spaniens geringe Verteidigungsausgaben erneut kritisiert hatte.

599847 Željka Šulc

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mission) condemns the use of misogynistic and religiously prejudiced rhetoric directed at STAV journalist Rabija Arifović and other female journalists and members of journalists’ associations. Media professionals must be able to work in a safe and respectful environment, with their freedoms and personal security fully protected.

The Mission commends the response from law enforcement and judicial institutions and urges bodies responsible for gender equality and human rights to work on ensuring security, professional protection and safe online space for all female journalists who often encounter gender-based harassment, online abuse, and threats to their personal safety in carrying out their professional duties.

The Mission calls on all actors to refrain from language and rhetoric that undermines the safety, integrity, or professional standing of journalists.

The Mission will continue to support efforts aimed at safeguarding journalists and promoting a safe and respectful environment for media professionals.

The next meeting of the Subcommittee on Human Rights is scheduled to take place on Monday 10 November and Tuesday 11 November 2025, in Brussels.
DROI meetings - 2025
DROI meetings - 2026
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

600136 Munira Shoinbekova, OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe

On 17 October 2025, the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe, in co-operation with the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources and the Agency for Land Reclamation and Irrigation, organized introductory sessions on the recently established Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Border Agreement.

The event, attended by 30 regional officials (one woman) from both institutions in the Sughd Region, highlighted the agreement’s importance as a key milestone in bilateral co-operation.

The sessions aimed to enhance institutional capacity by equipping participants with knowledge and practical skills needed for the effective implementation of the agreement at local level. Through training and open dialogue, officials discussed regional co-operation on transboundary rivers, the legal framework for bilateral water co-operation, national water legislation, and integrated water resources management.

By empowering regional staff, the initiative promotes closer collaboration and co-ordination between border regions of the two countries, contributing to sustainable resource management and stability in border communities.

This activity aligns with the OSCE’s mission to support dialogue, foster co-operation, and promote lasting peace and sustainable development in the region.

Zehnjähriges Projekt sieht Wiedereröffnung des Justus-Lipsius-Gebäudes für 2036 vor.

A vendor speaks to a customer at a second-hand clothes market in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Oct 23 2025 (IPS)

Shamiso Marambanyika assists a male customer in selecting a pair of jeans on a Saturday morning in Mutare, a city in the eastern part of Zimbabwe.

The 38-year-old mother of three showed the customer a brand of Marks and Spencer, commonly known as M&S, a British retailer based in London.

“I can give you this for 5 dollars,” Marambanyika screamed to the customer, who later picked out a different pair of jeans. She is a vendor at a popular market for secondhand clothes in Sakubva, a densely populated suburb in Mutare, near the border with Mozambique.

Some of the popular brands of jeans Marambanyika had in her stock include Hennes & Mauritz, known as H&M from Sweden, and Levi’s and Old from the United States. These secondhand clothes are dumped in Western countries like the United Kingdom, shipped to Africa, and smuggled into Zimbabwe through Mutare, the gateway to the Indian Ocean in Mozambique.

The clothes are so cheap that one can get three T-shirts for USD 1. This has had repercussions not only on the local textile industry but also on the environment in Africa.

Pushing Local Clothing Manufacturers and Retailers Out of Business

Some clothing companies left by the British are struggling because of secondhand clothes and Zimbabwe’s ailing economy. Truworths Zimbabwe, a fashion retail chain established in 1957, closed about 34 of the 101 stores it operated in the late 1990s. To cut its operating costs, Truworths also reduced its workforce at its manufacturing division in the capital, Harare.

Bekithemba Ndebele, chief executive officer at Truworths Zimbabwe, confirmed to IPS that the company was sold because it was struggling. After going insolvent, Truworths was sold for USD 1 and officially delisted from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in July 2025.

Last year, Truworths released a statement that the company could not compete with cheap imports. Ndebele declined to give further details. These formal clothing businesses cannot compete with thousands of individuals who sell smuggled secondhand clothes at markets in cities across the country, in the streets and from car boots.

At Marambanyika’s market in Sakubva, there are more than 1000 vending stalls, each vocally advertising their goods to attract potential customers. In Mutare city center, tens of vendors pay USD 6 per day to sell secondhand clothes on weekends. Unlike these vendors who do not pay taxes, retailers like Truworths pay taxes and are forced to use volatile local currency.

Rashweat Mukundu, a social commentator based in Harare, says economic hardship forces many to resort to secondhand clothes. “This is an overall economic challenge. Many people have no choice but to go and buy secondhand clothes because they cannot afford the new clothes sold in the organized retail sector,” he says.

In retail outlets, a pair of jeans costs at least USD 20.

Marambanyika, who hails from Buhera in Manicaland Province, was pushed into the secondhand clothing trade in 2023 after failing to secure a job. She pays USD 115 to a middleman known as a transporter who will buy a bale weighing 45 kilograms from Beira, a city and one of the business ports in Mozambique. “Prices vary with the quality of the jeans. There are about 100 pairs of jeans in a bale. I make a profit of USD 55 from each bale, and it takes two weeks to sell them all,” Marambanyika says, adding that she pays USD 22 monthly to the local authority.

Anesu Mugabe, a clothing designer and manufacturer based in Harare, says these secondhand clothes are often sold at extremely low prices, making it impossible for local manufacturers to compete.

“For instance, you can find a pair of jeans for as little as USD 2. This is unheard of in local retail stores. This has led to a significant decline in sales for us, forcing us to scale down our operations or even shut down altogether,” says Mugabe, who is now targeting corporates as a survival strategy.

Threat to the Environment 

Across Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, cheap secondhand clothes are polluting the environment, according to a new report, Trashion: The Stealth Export of Waste Plastic Clothes to Kenya, published in February 2023.

Other recycling companies argue that the trade reduces waste in the Global South, but some environmental experts believe the trade is doing the opposite. Research shows that in Kenya, secondhand clothes are dumped in rivers and landfills. “What we are seeing is not recycling but dumping second-hand clothing from the West,” says Nyasha Mpahlo, executive director at Green Governance. “Unfortunately, there is no mechanism to dispose of the waste from secondhand clothes. Secondhand clothing is found in landfills. The industry is also causing carbon emissions.”

Amkela Sidange, an environmental education and publicity manager at the state’s Environmental Management Agency, says the textile waste is very minimal in Zimbabwe, contributing an estimated 7% to the total waste generated on an annual basis.

“An analysis of the source of the textile waste indicates it is coming from various sources, mostly coming from the textile industry and nothing on record is linked to secondhand clothes,” she tells IPS, citing a Solid Waste survey conducted in 2023.

Attempts to Ban Secondhand Clothes

Other countries, like Rwanda, successfully banned secondhand clothes in 2016 to protect the local textile industry. Zimbabwe did the same in 2015 but introduced import taxes in 2017 after pressure from the locals. But these measures and arrests by police did not tame the smuggling of secondhand clothes.

Local textile industry players are calling for the government to ban the importation of secondhand clothes and to reduce taxes on local suppliers to protect the local textile industry. In August, Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe instructed local authorities to enforce the ban on the sale of secondhand clothes. But traders have defied the minister’s efforts.

Marambanyika says if she is forced to pay import duty and other taxes, she will go out of business. “I feed my one son and two daughters and pay school fees for them using proceeds from this business. I cannot afford to pay those punitive taxes,” she says. “I will close and relocate to the village.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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