Mitumba is a
Swahili term, literally meaning "bundles", used to refer to plastic-wrapped packages of used clothing donated by people in wealthy countries. The term is also applied to the clothing that arrives in these bundles.
One major receiving port for Mitumba is in the
Tanzanian
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
city of
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...
. From there the clothing is widely dispersed into the interior of Africa. The transportation and sale of Mitumba is responsible for many jobs both in wealthy donor companies and in the African countries where Mitumba is bought and sold. Critics of the Mitumba trade note that the influx of cheap clothing is responsible for the decline of local
textile
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
industries. Proponents of Mitumba point out that the clothing is beneficial in that it stimulates economic activity and allows people with limited means to afford fashionable clothing.
Mitumba is usually packaged in plastic bundles prior to transport to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. Most of the Mitumba originates in developed countries such as the United States. Companies like Mid-West Textile Company of
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
purchase clothes that were donated to non-profit organizations such as
Goodwill Industries
Goodwill Industries International Inc., often shortened in speech and writing to Goodwill (stylized as goodwill), is an American nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides job training, employment placement services, and other community-bas ...
. These clothes are then put into a conveyor belt and workers sort through them before making the bales or packages to be shipped to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
.
The practice of purchasing and the subsequent sale of clothes that were originally acquired as donations has received heavy criticism. However, defendants of the practice argue that not-for-profits organizations receive such large quantities of donations that they must indeed sell them in order to fund the several social projects they are involved with. The defendants go even further as to argue that if non-profit organizations were not able to sell most of their donations, they would not be able to survive nor fulfill their mission statements of helping the disadvantaged. The industry is one of the topics covered by professor
Pietra Rivoli
Pietra Rivoli is a professor of Finance and International Business at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), ...
in her best-selling book, ''The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy''.
[{{Cite book, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0bdUHkbEZqQC&dq=mitumba&pg=PA224, title=The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade, last=Rivoli, first=Pietra, date=2009-04-01, publisher=John Wiley & Sons, isbn=9780470456422, language=en]
See also
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Clothing in Africa
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Global trade of secondhand clothing
The global trade of secondhand clothing has a long history. Until the mid 19th century, second hand clothing was an important way of acquiring clothing. Only through industrialization, mass production, and increasing income, was the general publi ...
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Salaula The Zambian term salaula means "to select from a pile in the manner of rummaging" or for short, "to pick".
Some African nations such as Zambia have a vast internal consumer demand for second-hand clothes or hand-me-downs from rich nations in North ...
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1990s in African fashion
Fashion in the 1990s was defined by a return to minimalist fashion, in contrast to the more elaborate and flashy trends of the 1980s. One notable shift was the mainstream adoption of tattoos, body piercings aside from ear piercing and, to a mu ...
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2000s in African fashion
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2010s in African fashion
References
African clothing
Textile industry
Swahili words and phrases
1990s fashion
2000s fashion