East Africa wants to curb imports of used clothes. But it’s not easy

Not even heavy rain can keep shoppers away from Gikomba, a lively Kenyan market that stands as the largest open-air trading hub in East Africa.

Sections of the site were waterlogged on the day the BBC visited, yet shoppers, some wearing rubber boots, still inched their way through the congested pathways, hunting for Gikomba’s speciality – second-hand clothing.

The trade in garments imported from the US, Europe and China poses a perennial problem for the East African Community (EAC), a regional bloc of which Kenya is a member. How can the region build a thriving fashion industry when it is saturated with cheap cast-offs?

“We’re competing with second-hand clothing, but we can’t compete on price,” Zia Bett, founder of Kenyan womenswear brand Zia Africa, tells the BBC.

Elizabeth Paul, who owns Kuya Creations in Tanzania’s main city of Dar es Salaam, agrees: “In my shop, the minimum price of a dress is 50,000 Tanzanian shillings (£14.50; $19.20). People tell me: ‘For 50,000 I can get 10 second-hand dresses, so let me buy those.’”

A decade ago, the EAC decried the influx of second-hand clothing and was primed to impose a ban across its member states. After some strong-arming from the US, the proposal fell apart but now the debate has resurfaced.

Uganda, a country whose president once criticised second-hand clothing as coming from white “dead people”, has introduced an additional 30% tax on imports in an effort to boost the local garment industry and protect the environment.

Days later, the treasury in neighbouring Kenya attempted to change the way it taxed used clothing, saying its proposed system would simplify things for importers. But following a backlash from Kenyans worried that this would lead to price rises, the proposal was swiftly dropped from the Finance Bill.

In a bid to support homegrown clothing manufacturers, Kenya already applies a 30% customs duty to imports of used clothing – 5% more than it costs to ship in new clothes.

Zia Bett Zia Bett poses wearing sunglasses, a striped suit and a blue jacketZia Bett

Kenyan designer Zia Bett – pictured here in her own designs – believes second-hand clothing imports should be banned altogether

According to trade data platform the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Kenya is currently Africa’s leading importer of second-hand clothing or “mitumba” as they are known in Swahili.

The mitumba-loving nation received almost 180,000 tonnes of used clothing in 2022 – a 76% increase on the amount imported in 2013, UN trade data shows.

In neighbouring Uganda, second-hand clothes are the most sought-after garments, followed by imported new clothing and, lastly, locally manufactured clothing, the government-funded Economic Policy Research Centre found in 2024.

The new 30% environmental levy on used clothing comes on top of an existing 35% import duty and 18% VAT.

“The levy of 30% on worn clothing is intended to mitigate environmental degradation while promoting domestic production,” the bill says, according to local news outlet the Kampala Report.

The announcement did not go down well with Ugandan mitumba traders such as Aaron Sekky.

“I don’t agree with this, because this has to be a free economy,” he tells the BBC.

The second-hand trade “is supporting so many people”, Sekky adds – a common argument among proponents of the industry. The supply chain goes beyond retailers like Sekky and includes importers, wholesalers, tailors who mend damaged mitumba and those who sell food and drink at the markets.

There is no official data on how many people work in the industry but according to research commissioned by the Mitumba Consortium Association of Kenya (MCAK), up to 4.9 million people across East Africa rely on the used clothing trade for work.

But critics believe the employment argument is superficial.

“Retail is the most limited form of job creation you can have in an economic sector, versus production, marketing and distribution,” says Dr Andrew Brooks, a King’s College London academic who wrote Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes.

“If you’re just importing things and selling things, you’re doing very, very little to contribute to your nation’s economy.”

Likewise, Lisa Kibutu, a Kenya Fashion Council board member, says many jobs involving mitumba are “hand-to-mouth” roles that do not allow for growth and social mobility.

However, she also believes used clothing provides an important service in Kenya.

“When I left Kenya in the 80s, you would see poor people without clothing. Right now even the poorest person has decent clothing,” Kibutu, who previously worked in the US for designers like Giorgio Armani and Eileen Fisher, tells me.

Affordability is a huge selling point, but nowadays mitumba is no longer reserved for the poorest customers.

Najma Issa, 40, tells the BBC while shopping at Ilala market, a second-hand clothing hub in Dar es Salaam: “Most of the clothes have good quality… they last long.”

Twenty-two-year-old Juma Awadh agrees: “I buy second-hand clothes because of quality and they look unique.”

Even though Tanzania levies a 35% import tax on used clothes, Ilala is still overflowing with customers looking for cheap clothes. This bustling scene is one the EAC once hoped would cease to exist.

In 2015, the then-six EAC members – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda – announced they would all place extremely high tariffs on – and eventually ban – the import of mitumba.