They call it “donation.” We call it “second-hand.” But let’s call it what it truly is: WASTE COLONIALISM.

Every day, container-loads of used clothes from the Global North flood our ports in Ghana, Togo, Kenya, Nigeria, and beyond. Not as aid. Not as trade. As DUMPING.

Yes dumping. Waste they don’t want. Waste they won’t wear. Waste that is choking our streets, our landfills, and worse, our minds.

Over 15 million pieces of second-hand clothing land in Accra’s Kantamanto Market every week. Over 40% of it is unsellable trash. Where does it go? Into our gutters, oceans, forests, and water bodies. This isn’t just environmental abuse. It’s economic sabotage marketed as mercy.

Ghana’s once vibrant textile industry collapsed. Over 80% of local textile factories have shut down since the 1980s. From Juapong to Akosombo to Tema, our industrial machines now rust in silence, while our people wear the discarded fashion of other people’s cultures, bodies, and seasons. This is not trade. This is erasure.

We are not just importing clothes. We are importing dependency, inferiority, and decay.

Tell me: How do we build pride when our identity is stitched in someone else’s name tag?

They say, “What will happen if we stop the imports?” I ask, what will happen if we don’t? The same retailers crying about second-hand bans can sell African-made fabrics. Kente. Batakari. Fugu. Wax print. Cotton from our own farms. Labels in Twi, Ga, Ewe, Dagbani, Swahili, Zulu not Paris, Milan, or New York. Grow local demand. Export regional value. Build continental brands. Is this not what AfCFTA was created for?

You want jobs? You want respect? Then stop spending billions importing other people’s rubbish and start investing in African creativity, African textile design, African manufacturing. From production to retail, we can rebuild this ecosystem from the ground up.

And let’s talk about health. That faded shirt you just bought for 5 cedis? It might’ve been soaked in lead-based dyes, formaldehyde, or skin-infecting mold. Research from OR Foundation and Circle Economy show that used clothes often carry bacteria, allergens, and toxins. And yes Ghanaian children are getting sick from swimming in waste-infested drains filled with this textile trash.

You call this “affordable.” I call it poison.

This is modern slavery in cotton form.

We must not just ban waste imports. We must pass bold protectionist laws to rebuild local industry, back innovation, and re-ignite a generation of African fashion entrepreneurs. Rwanda showed us it can be done. So can we.

Africa cannot be both proud and dependent. Choose one.

This is not just about fabric. It’s about sovereignty. If we are serious about our freedom, our future, our fortune then we must stop clothing ourselves in colonial leftovers.

Wear Africa. Invest in Africa. Protect Africa.

Or stay stylish in slavery.