Princess Eugenie released a new statement today.

Princess Eugenie has made a major announcement today just days after her mother, Sarah Ferguson’s bombshell email to Jeffrey Epstein sent shockwaves around the world. Prince Andrew and Fergie’s younger daughter, who co-founded The Anti-Slavery Collective with childhood friend Julia de Boinville in 2017, launched a new campaign about fake fashion.

The campaign, called Hidden Threads: Fake Fashion – A Human Rights Scandal, exposes the hidden exploitation in counterfeit fashion supply chains – from unregulated factories to market stalls. A statement read: “Behind fake handbags, trainers or football shirts, evidence shows some of the worst abuses, including forced labour, child labour and human trafficking.”

Eugenie attended the launch in New York, which coincided with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and New York Climate Week, which runs until September 28.

Princess Eugenie launches new campaign with her charity (Image: Getty)

Princess Eugenie examines counterfeit handbags in Manhattan to expose the human exploitation (Image: The Anti-Slavery Collective)

Princess Eugenie inspects seized counterfeit goods linked to forced labour and human trafficking (Image: The Anti-Slavery Collective)

She looked chic in a dark champagne silk skirt and a colour-matching button-up knit.

The event saw the Anti-Slavery Collective, TRACIT and Entrupy (a leader in AI-powered verification) host guests at Goals House, where they could see and feel the realities of counterfeit fashion supply chains.

The guests also saw how emerging technologies and bold public-private partnerships can disrupt illicit trade and expose one of fashion’s most overlooked human rights scandals.

Princess Eugenie said: “Fake fashion fuels modern slavery, and The Anti-Slavery Collective is determined to confront and challenge it.

“It’s not always obvious, but the clothes and accessories we buy can come at a hidden cost to people and the planet. There are 28 million people today who are forced to work in dangerous and exploitative industries for little or no pay.

“Behind counterfeit fashion are men, women and children coerced into making, distributing or selling fake goods – often at great personal risk and with little gain.

The princess is very passionate about human-trafficking (Image: The Anti-Slavery Collective)

“This campaign is about creating a call to action for consumers. We want people to pause and think about where their fakes come from and how they were made.”

Eugenie’s latest campaign calls on governments to crack down on illicit trade by sharing data, enforcing bans on goods made with forced labour, and tackling counterfeiting more seriously.

It also encourages consumers to think twice about whether buying fakes is really worth the human cost.

It comes just days after Eugenie’s mother, the Duchess of York, dominated news headlines around the world following the disclosure of an email to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein in which she described him as a “supreme friend”.

Amid the backlash, several charities severed ties with the Duchess, after it emerged she apologised to the sex offender in April 2011 after publicly disowning him in the media.