From what I understand of the Pakistan soccer ball industry, it’s a tough place to work. Not just for workers, many of whom, for cultural reasons, must work at home in pretty poor economic conditions.

It also difficult for companies determined to source from there. It is not the easiest country in the world to source from, and is probably uncompetitive when factoring the cultural issues companies face in sourcing from there alongside the labour costs of somewhere like Vietnam, Bangladesh or China.

Workers do not get the same freedom to work collectively in a factory in the same way as they do in China or Vietnam. Many women, at least in a major area of soccer ball manufacture, Sialkot, are made to work at home largely by conservative religious repression.

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