Kylie Jenner, already infamous for selling diet tea that causes explosive diarrhea, is now embroiled in a different kind of scandal: stiffing garment workers on pay. Global Brand Group, the entity that runs several Kardashian-Jenner family brands, has come under fire for dissolving its Bangladesh-based operations (citing COVID-era uncertainty), leaving thousands of workers “starving” and angry.

Fashion Nova, which runs rapper Cardi B’s line, has given similar reasons for pulling contracts in Los Angeles and throwing upwards of fifty thousand workers off payroll, most of them immigrant women who do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Such cut-and-run maneuvers are all too common in the garment industry, especially in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is an industrial one-trick pony. Eighty-four percent of its export revenue comes from ready-made garments that workers (mostly women) churn out for primarily Western markets. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, global demand has plummeted, brands and retailers have bailed on suppliers, and factories have shut down, laying off a million garment workers — a quarter of the country’s garment labor force.