Zara

Zara is a Spanish fast fashion brand, it operates as the flagship brand of Inditex, controlled by the Ortega family. The BDS movement's Palestinian National Committee officially endorsed boycotting Zara in 2025, citing "deep and growing complicity in Israel's regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide."

The boycott campaign centers on Zara's continued expansion in Israel during the genocide in Gaza, incidents involving employees and business partners, and the company's silence on Palestinian casualties while maintaining profitable operations through its Israeli franchisee.

Israel’s Expansion During the Gaza Genocide

Zara opened its largest-ever Israeli store in February 2025, a 4,500-square-meter in the Glilot complex near Tel Aviv. This expansion occurred as the Gaza death toll exceeded 80,000 Palestinians, while Zara's Israeli operations continued generating tax revenue for the government conducting the genocidal campaign

Joey Schwebel, president of Trimera Brands which operates Zara's 84 Israeli stores, hosted a campaign event for ultranationalist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in October 2022. Ben-Gvir has been indicted 53 times for racial incitement and has openly called for expelling Palestinians and denying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Following the event, Ben-Gvir tweeted:

ZARA, beautiful clothes, beautiful Israelis.

Pattern of Racist Incidents

In June 2021, Vanessa Perilman, then head designer for Zara Women's Department, sent racist Instagram messages to Palestinian model Qaher Harhash. Perilman wrote:

Maybe if your people were educated then they wouldn't blow up the hospitals and schools that Israel helped to pay for in Gaza.

Despite public backlash and boycott calls, Zara took no disciplinary action against Perilman.

In December 2023 Zara's "The Jacket" advertising campaign featured mannequins wrapped in white shrouds positioned among rubble and debris, imagery that resembles shrouded Palestinian bodies emerging from Gaza's destruction. The campaign launched during Israel's military assault that had killed over 18,000 Palestinians by that date.

Zara's ad campaign during Gaza genocide
Zara's ad campaign during Gaza genocide

Global protests forced store closures across multiple countries.

The company initially defended the campaign as "conceived in July and photographed in September" before October 7, then issued a non-apology stating:

Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images...and saw in them something far from what was intended.
Zara's non apology

Zara's Systematic Supply Chain Human Rights Abuses

Zara's global supply chain has been implicated in human rights violations across multiple countries for over a decade. Despite public advertising of commitments to ethical sourcing, investigative research reveals a patterns of corporate negligence prioritizing profits over human safety.

Forced labor and child exploitation

On three different occasions in 2011, Brazilian labor inspectors discovered 15 immigrant workers, including a 14-year-old child, working in conditions "analogous to slavery" at São Paulo workshops producing Zara garments. Workers faced 16-19 hour daily shifts with restricted freedom of movement, living in overcrowded conditions while earning R$ 2 (approx. 1 USD in 2011) per piece for garments sold at R$ 139 (approx. 70 USD in 2011) retail prices.

When Zara Brasil and AHA, the company that acted as an intermediary between Zara and the subcontracted workshops, were first summoned by Brazilian authorities to address the allegations of slavery in the brand's production chain, they did not even bother to show up, until more than a month later. Rather than accept responsibility, Zara Brasil fought sanctions in court for six years, losing both the initial case and appeal in November 2017.

Following the slavery allegations, Zara initially refused to sign a settlement agreement with Brazil's Labor Public Ministry, instead it only signed a watered-down version for only 17% of the original amount compensation amount, with wording that effectively allow Zara to avoid admitting fault.

The company went as far as filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Brazil's "dirty list" (an official government registry that publicly names employers who have been caught subjecting workers to "conditions analogous to slavery" - Brazil's legal definition of modern slavery, the list serves as a tool to fight against modern slavery) leading to its suspension from the Brazilian National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor in 2012.

In 2013, Zara was accused of using slave labor in Argentina after Buenos Aires authorities discovered Bolivian workers, including children, trapped in clandestine workshops producing Zara-labeled clothing under degrading conditions with 13-hour workdays.

In 2014, Zara Brasil Director-General admitted under Congressional inquiry that slave labor had occurred in their production chain, contradicting years of corporate denial. Courts ruled Zara maintained direct control over production while using complex subcontracting to disguise responsibility. The company faced over R$ 35 million in fines while systematically discriminating against immigrant suppliers, terminating 31 suppliers and eliminating 157 immigrant jobs rather than improving conditions.

Factory safety failures and worker deaths

Zara sourced from facilities involved in Bangladesh's deadliest industrial accidents, including the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse that killed 1,138 workers and the Smart Export Garments factory fire that killed 8 workers. A 2021 Worker Rights Consortium investigation found 54 Inditex (Zara's owner) supplier factories in Bangladesh with outstanding safety hazards, including 40 factories lacking fire alarm systems.

The 2005 Spectrum factory collapse in Bangladesh killed 64 workers and permanently disabled 80 others at a facility producing garments for Zara. The building had been constructed on a former swamp, and workers' structural concerns were ignored before the deadly collapse.

Wage theft and worker exploitation

At Turkey's Bravo Tekstil factory, which produced 75% of its output for Zara, 140 workers were left unpaid for three months of labor totaling €650,000 when the factory closed overnight in July 2016.

In Bangladesh, around 2900 workers in Zara's supply chain face criminal charges for participating in 2023 wage protests. Four workers were killed by police during the crackdown, and at least eight Zara supplier factories participated in filing criminal charges against workers for organizing.

Environmental destruction

Investigations have linked Zara to illegal deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, tied to more than 816,000 tons of cotton sourced from suppliers with documented environmental violations. Between 2008 and 2019, those suppliers, connected to Zara’s supply chain, incurred over $4.5 million in fines for illegal deforestation.

Greenpeace's 2012 investigation found Zara garments manufactured across multiple countries contained dangerous substances. Two products made in Pakistan - jeans sold in Lebanon and Hungary - tested positive for cancer-causing amines released from dyes. While below regulatory limits, any detection of carcinogenic compounds raises serious health concerns. Additionally, a jacket manufactured in China contained (NPEs) high levels of chemicals that break down into persistent hormone disruptors in waterways.

Corporate Structure

Zara operates 1,800+ suppliers across 7,000+ factories globally, creating a deliberately complex network that enables plausible deniability when abuses are discovered. Unlike industry peers, Zara refuses to publish factory supplier lists, having almost no supply chain transparency.

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