The Kantamanto Fire: A Devastating Blow to Ghana’s Informal Economy and the Global Secondhand Clothing Trade
by Azfar Khan Senior Economist & Researcher
People try to salvage items from the burned down secondhand clothing market at Kantamanto in Accra, Ghana, on January 2, 2025. AFP - NIPAH DENNIS - Traders
While most of the world was busy ushering in the new year, a catastrophe was unfolding in Ghana where a fire decimated the secondhand clothes market of Kantamato in Accra. Though the reasons for how the fire started and who or what was responsible for triggering the blaze are still unclear, it seems quite apparent that thousands of people working as retailers and traders have lost their livelihoods, families have been affected and are now without income.
“I couldn’t salvage a thing [from my stall]. Everything has gone. Now my daily bread has been cut. I used my stall at Kantamanto to sustain myself.”
Alhassan Fatawu (Stall owner)
The consequences are very far-reaching. Beyond the economic losses sustained, the traders and workers, including artisans who repurpose discarded textiles into new products, have now seen their businesses completely wiped out. For them, the loss is devastating, and rebuilding from the ground up will take years. The ripple effect on local communities cannot be overstated; families and communities that were built around this market are left in limbo. The traders and workers aren’t just defined by their occupations; they are pillars of their communities. Without their incomes, local businesses and support networks will also suffer, and the social fabric of these communities will unravel.
The traders, artisans and workers in Kantamato are all part of a larger informal economy, where incomes are generally low, not regular and tend to fluctuate a lot over time. Moreover, the work that they do is not covered by protective regulatory and social protection systems. The fluctuation in income generation and explicit and implicit disentitlement to benefits, renders them extremely vulnerable to economic and social shocks as witnessed in Kantamanto. Thus, it is the economic losses and their direct consequences that are most disconcerting. The lower income groups in developing societies, such as those eking out a living in Kantamanto, worry about not having enough money or resources with which to survive or live decently, and they worry about not having enough to meet likely contingencies. The raising of cash revenues is a prime concern for many as they strive to obtaining proper nutrition, adequate housing and access to essential services, such as healthcare and education; that is, a basic but decent standard of living. Any threat to their income generation, such as the fire in Kantamanto, puts them in dire circumstances from which it is hard to extricate oneself. Those falling below such levels will very likely suffer the failings that come from intolerable insecurity; an incapacity to function, an inability to take risks, a tendency to drift into one or other social illnesses, and actively contributing to high incidence of child labour.
An aerial view of the devastation caused by Thursday's fire at Kantamanto, shot by an eyewitness.
The Kantamanto market is one of the world’s biggest for used clothes, receiving 15 million used clothes -known locally as obroni wawu or ‘dead white man’s clothes’- from the global north each week. According to the Guardian, the market, before the fire, was ‘a sprawling complex of thousands of stalls crammed with clothes from brands including H&M, Levi Strauss, Tesco, Primark, New Look and more.’ It seems the fire, wreaking devastating damage to 10 of the 13 sections of the market, has negatively impacted the majority of an estimated 30,000 people working there, whose livelihoods are intrinsically linked to the commercial activity in the market.
Second-hand clothing markets are quite ubiquitous in the global south. They generally cater to those earning modest incomes. redirecting consumption away from new garments, promoting reused clothing, and preventing premature disposal. Items that enter the second-hand clothing market are sold either directly by consumers or with the help of third-party vendors. But lest we see this as purely a developing country phenomenon, such markets are also thriving in the European Union (EU) and other high income countries. One research shows that the secondhand market is expected to grow exponentially in the EU: while it was worth €16 billion in 2021, it is estimated to reach €34 billion by 2025. It is further projected that globally; the secondhand apparel market will reach $350 billion.
The problem though is in the developing countries, such as Ghana, where the functions of such markets are not regulated forcefully. Without a strong regulatory framework and without proper protections and insurances, it is the workers and vendors in such places who have to bear the brunt of any disaster and/or misfortune if it befalls them. With stripped social protection, the workers are the mercy of events beyond their control and can only hope that the negative effects are not abjectly severe or long-lasting. Not having a living income and/or a living wage, recovering livelihoods is also not an easy task.
Where does the responsibility lie to help the vendors?
In recent years, Ghana has been used as a dumping ground of fast fashion. In 2021, Ghana imported $214 million of used clothing, making it the world’s biggest importer. This has created other problems. Though the leading brands may not be directly responsible, it must be asked if they sanction the export of garments, usually the castoffs of “fast fashion” from Europe. It may not be the brands, but many companies based in the developed world play a major role in the export of secondhand garments from the global north to countries of global south. There are also no checks on the functional quality of these goods and a considerable quantity is dumped in huge landfills, which creates huge environmental problems. One finding suggests that the clothing rubbish is the main contributor to making the Korle Lagoon near Accra as one of the most polluted water bodies in the world. In Ghana, about 40% of the textiles that arrive in Kantamanto are discarded as waste thus, bringing a higher volume of lower-quality secondhand clothes. As the traders are required to pay for the shipment of items, sub-standard or damaged clothing imposes unsettling costs. A drop in quality leads to more waste and erodes the traders’ earnings, sending many into debt; plunging them into situations that are antithetical to the upholding of fundamental human rights.
Shop owners clearing their stalls of metal scraps during the fire. Photo: Julius Tornyi, courtesy of the Or Foundation & Vogue
So, what can or should be done? Clearly this is an administrative failure on part of the local and regional government that are responsible for the governance of institutions such as the Kantamanto market. The establishing of binding standards and robust mechanisms could prevent such tragedies and determine the legal responsibility of people responsible in matters of good governance and protection of human rights. It is imperative that governments respect their obligation to prevent problems for local businesses -and citizens- within their jurisdiction by including, and implementing, protective measures in their legal code. But companies in the Global North should also share part of the responsibility consistent with the EU legal due diligence framework in global supply chains obligating member states to be vigilant in human rights matters for corporations located in Europe. They have an ethical obligation to provide reasonable safety to the working population in their supply chain which we think includes retailing of excess new and used fast fashion-n clothes. When safety features are ignored, the unfortunate framing of decision can lead to unethical decisions and tragic consequences.
Schemes to improve the income earning of households relying on market activities in Kantamanto should also be considered. In many countries, governments and local authorities have launched innovative income generation (employment guarantee scheme in India) and social protection schemes (bolsa escola in Brazil) to respond to a widespread low-income generation and lack of entitlement to social benefits. Usually, the opportunity to learn from such initiatives is missed, so that the lessons - positive and negative - are not disseminated. A consideration of such schemes would be an exercise in building a new social structure that will revive well-being of the vulnerable groups while strengthening social solidarity. What is required is a coherent set of policies that equalizes rights across society. It is a highly topical issue, linked in part to consideration of alternative forms of governance, and one that must be regarded as linked to developments in social protection and compensation systems.
What happened at Kantamanto was a disaster waiting to happen. Evidently, this wasn’t the first time a fire has broken out in the market and seems an almost annual occurrence, albeit not quite on this scale. A report has suggested that the unchecked expansion of the market that promoted its growth has left it unstable and prone to fires. It is also unprotected from heavy rains, meaning that flooding routinely shuts the market down. But then, who suffers?
Azfar Khan, January 2025
Azfar Khan is a Senior Economist & Researcher at the Anker Research Institute, specialising in living wage methodologies and analysis.
Views expressed are the authors. The opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and may or may not reflect the views of Anker Research Institute.
For general inquiries about the Anker Research Institute’s work, contact: inquiries@ankerinstitute.org
References:
https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250103-traders-reeling-fire-destroys-ghana-largest-second-hand-clothesmarket-kantamanto
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/03/massive-cleanup-under-way-after-fire-destroys-one-of-worlds-biggest-secondhand-markets-ghana
https://www.thredup.com/resale
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1020706728569
https://www.voguebusiness.com/sustainability/cleaning-up-fashions-waste-is-dirty-work-why-is-shein-the-only-one-paying