Woah.
What happens to all those old clothes you bring to the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries? Over 90% of the clothes donated in the US are being sold all over Africa as second-hand clothing and have created a multi-million dollar business. In Zambia in the 1970s there were over 85 clothing manufactures employing over 10,000 people. Today Zambia depends solely on imported goods, making it less and less self-sufficient.
Other countries such as Kenya have seen their local textile industries decimated by imports of second-hand clothing. The justification for such imports is that the clothes are cheaper and the displaced textile workers will find more valuable employment elsewhere. Instead, workers can become permanently unemployed or employed at lower wages, and a country can lose an industry that might have provided the first stepping-stone to the development of a manufacturing sector.
Watch the movie T-Shirt Travels that documents the secondhand clothing market in developing nations.
I shop and donate to those two places a lot, so I felt very compelled to share the information. Donate to independent charities instead! Operation School Bell, Assistance League, etc.