Zimbabwe’s government has formalised a ban on the importation of second-hand clothing, enforcing the restriction through Statutory Instrument 59 of 2026 in what officials describe as an effort to revive the country’s domestic textile and clothing manufacturing sector. But behind the industrial ambition lies a harder reality: for millions of Zimbabweans, used clothing imported from Europe and Asia has been a vital source of affordable clothing for decades — and the ban threatens to strip that affordability away entirely.
The trade in second-hand clothes, known colloquially as mupove, has long been a lifeline for low-income Zimbabwean families. Markets such as Mbare in Harare are packed with vendors selling imported garments at prices that new domestically produced items simply cannot match. A family of five can outfit itself for a fraction of what it would cost to purchase newly manufactured equivalents. For many, second-hand clothing is not a preference but a necessity.
The government’s stated rationale is that the used clothing trade is destroying local industry. Textile factories in Bulawayo and other centres have operated well below capacity for years, squeezed by competition from cheap imports. By blocking second-hand goods, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce hopes manufacturers will be able to scale up production and create jobs. It’s an industrial policy goal that has some merit on paper.
But economists and development experts have questioned whether Zimbabwe’s manufacturing base is ready to fill the gap. Domestic factories producing new clothes would need significant capital investment, reliable electricity — Zimbabwe still suffers from chronic load-shedding — and access to affordable raw materials to ramp up output quickly enough to meet demand. Without those conditions, the ban risks simply creating a clothing shortage that inflates prices for the very consumers it claims to protect.
For informal sector workers — market vendors, street hawkers, and tailors who rely on the second-hand clothing trade for their livelihoods — the ban represents an immediate economic shock. An estimated 50,000 to 80,000 Zimbabweans are directly employed in the importation, wholesale, and retail of used clothing. Indirectly, the sector supports many more households that depend on the network of informal commerce that surrounds it.
The environmental argument sometimes used to defend such bans — that second-hand clothing contributes to waste problems — is complicated by the fact that much of what is imported is wearable and durable, with the truly unserviceable items already filtered out by exporters before shipment. What is less complicated is the human cost: a family that today spends ten dollars on a bundle of second-hand garments may tomorrow find that equivalent clothing costs ten times as much, or simply is not available at any price.
International trade observers have noted that similar bans in East Africa have produced mixed results. Rwanda’s attempt to restrict second-hand clothing imports a few years ago was met with significant pushback from exporting countries and ultimately had to be scaled back. Zimbabwe’s government may find that the political cost of enforcing a policy that visibly hurts the poorest consumers outweighs whatever industrial gains it is able to achieve.