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mitumba
in British English
(mɪˈtʊmbə)
NOUN
a. used clothes imported for sale in African countries from more developed western countries
b. (as modifier)
the mitumba economy
If you’ve ever considered whether to toss a misshapen t-shirt into the donation pile, figuring that someone at the other end can determine if it’s useful or not, you have — like so many of us — contributed to mitumba. Mitumba (“second hand” in Swahili) has come to refer to those clothes we donate that end up in, typically, African countries, where they are sold by the pound or the bale. Torn pants, pilly sweaters, and t-shirts — lots and lots of t-shirts.
Mitumba may sound like a good way to give used clothing a second life, but in fact, because of the poor quality of much of the clothing, it ends up being a way of transferring textile waste to poor countries. According to a Greenpeace report, “in 2021, about 458 million of the 900 million items of used clothing imported in Kenya were worthless. A recent report on the Kenyan thrift market further confirmed this deterioration by mentioning how traders had to part with approximately 20-50% of clothes in bales due to their flawed conditions.”
Kenya Wiley, a policy counsel and fashion law professor at Georgetown University, recently argued in The Washington Post that “Transforming a decades-old trade law can address the mitumba problem.” Specifically, she wrote, “The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) — a trade preference program between the United States and certain African countries — was first signed into law in 2000 and is set to expire in 2025. … The initiative should expand its focus beyond apparel manufacturing, as AGOA-eligible countries have done for years, but also encourage investments in recycling infrastructure to tackle the escalating textile waste problem.”
As fast fashion continues to grow — Chinese company Shein is valued at $100 billion and claims a 28% share of the U.S. fast fashion market — textile waste will grow also, with clothes destined not for longevity but for landfill. For mitumba.
