Charity societies are making good profit by selling used clothes collected from 'used clothing boxes'.

Many charitable societies are allegedly running a successful second-hand garments business and their capital is the generous minds of citizens and residents in the Kingdom. Sources say once the boxes kept in the neighbourhoods get filled with used clothes donated by generous individuals, they are shipped to Africa and Levant countries hosting refugees before being sold in the local markets.

Speaking to Tribune, Ahmed Ali, who worked for a society, said, “The clothes donated by good people are sold to traders here who export it to countries having high levels of low-income population. In the second-hand dress market, a big box full of clothes, for instance about 100 kilograms, could fetch something near BD30.” He said different charities follow different methods when it comes to selling second-hand garments. “Some sell per kilogram while some calculate prices on the number of boxes and there are also a few who would sell each and every cloth for 200 or 300 fils.” “These traders who buy these garments from societies make huge money by shipping them to Africa, Jordan and Lebanon. The traders buy a second-hand abaya here for 200 fils and sell them in Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey for BD5. The profit they make is enormous.”

Tribune spoke to Abu Saud, one of the traders who buy clothes from these charities and export them to Jordan. “I buy second-hand clothes from charities and they charge me per kilo. I sort them in my house before shipping them to Jordan. The profits aren’t really high.” “We buy 100 kilo clothes for about BD30 and the cost of shipping them is BD5. Add BD10 to it, which is the import duty in Jordan. This means we would have spent BD45 to sent our clothes to the distributor in Jordan. He sells them for BD70 and takes his profit as well.” Mr Saud is said whatever he does is very much legal. “There is nothing illegal in this. I do business without violating the laws of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.”