Abuse Reality for Indian Female Garment Workers

Home based garments workers, a majority of who are women, working for factories based in India supplying fashion wear for celebrities, are being exploited and forced to work in dismal economic and physical conditions. Clothes from the biggest fashion brands in the world are made by workers with low wages and poor working conditions

Clothes for the biggest fashion brands in the world are made by workers with low wages and poor working conditions. International experts say fast fashion has consequences — and new reports have claimed that it’s causing female workers to face widespread abuse on a daily basis.

According to research by the University of California women and girls from the most marginalized communities work for as little as 15 cents (Rs 6.99) an hour in homes across India. The research has revealed that child labour and forced labour were widespread and wages are frequently delayed and suppressed.

The study is regarded to be the most comprehensive assessment of conditions facing home-based garment workers. These workers’ work involves applying the final touches to a garment, including embroidery, tasseling, beadwork, and buttons. India’s garment industry is among the world’s biggest for manufacturing and export, employing 12.9 million people in formal factory settings, and millions more indirectly in informal, home-based settings.

According to Siddharth Kara, a lecturer at the University of California and the author of the Report “Every major brand, every boutique retailer and everyone in between who sources garments from India is touched by this issue. It ends up on the shelves of every major brand in the west.”

The study reveals that roughly one in five home-based garment workers in India are aged 17 and below.  In northern India, the researchers found, that one in 10 people were trapped in forced labour. Almost 6 percent were in bonded labour, where a person is forced to work to pay off a debt. A majority told the researchers that they began the work due to some form of duress, with many citing family pressure or severe financial hardship.   

The study added that clothing brands that source garments from India provide vital employment for women and girls who often have no other means of earning an income. Most of the home-based workers are from marginalized communities. According to the report, 99.3 percent were either Muslims or belonged to the scheduled castes. Of these  95.5 percent of the workers were women.

The Study found that most workers received between 50 percent and 90 per cent less than the state-stipulated minimum wages. Wages were discriminatory with male workers getting $2.37( Rs 168.52) for eight hours of work. While female workers earn only $1.12( Rs 79.68) for the same time.

The workers lacked social security. Less than 0.1 percent received any kind of medical care when they suffered an injury at work. Injuries and chronic illness, including back pain, and diminishing eyesight are very common among the garment workers. Around 23 per cent of these workers face chronic injury or illness.

Home Garment workers

More than that, the workers were denied the right to join a trade union, nor did they receive a written agreement for their work. The lack of unionization and written contracts promotes the informal, shadowy nature of home-based garment work and allows many of the exploitative conditions, particularly the severe underpayment of the wages.

In addition to home-based workers more than 12.9 million work within factory premises where working conditions are far from humane. H&M and Gap, two well known international fashion brands have been singled out in the two reports highlighting the “daily reality” of abuse faced by their female garment workers across factories in Asia, according to the Guardian. The two named are not the only brands exploiting Indian workers

Women workers in an H&M supplier factory in Bangalore, India reported physical abuse. Radhika said she was thrown to the floor and beaten, including on her breasts. She said on September 27, 2017, at 12:30 pm, my batch supervisor came up behind me as I was working on the sewing machine, yelling “you are not meeting your target production.” He pulled me out of the chair and I fell on the floor. He hit me, including on my breasts. He pulled me up and then pushed me to the floor again. He kicked me.

Radhika filed a written complaint with the human resources department at the factory. According to the worker, the harassment did not stop. She  continues to work at the factory because she needs the job: “My husband passed away and I have a physically challenged daughter. That is why I need the job. (Report on Gender-Based Violence in the H&M Garment Supply Chain WORKERS VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN: A Report to the ILO 2018).

According to the Report this is not an isolated incident. Other factories in India and across Asia have reported similar incidents. In India alone H&M lists 235 garment factories among its suppliers, according to the report. In one dispute in one factory over wages and working conditions, a female tailor said she was grabbed by the hair and punched, then told: “You whore, your caste people should be kept where the slippers are kept.”

The need for correction has been voiced across the world. Debbie Coulter, of the Ethical Trading Initiative, of which both Gap and H&M are members, said: “These allegations are deeply

concerning. Gender-based violence is unacceptable under any circumstances, and brands need to make sure that women working in their supply chain are protected.

Jennifer Rosenbaum, US director of Global Labour Justice, said: “We must understand gender-based violence as an outcome of the global supply chain structure. H&M and Gap’s fast fashion supply chain model creates unreasonable production targets and underbid contracts, resulting in women working unpaid overtime and working very fast under extreme pressure.

Fashion brands pay lip service to the need to rectify the situation and ensure that women workers are treated with dignity and respect. I a letter to the Guardian, London H&M representative has said  “All forms of abuse or harassment are against everything that H&M group stands for. Violence against women is one of the most prevalent human rights violations. 

Gender-based violence makes women all around the world suffer daily and undermines their health, dignity and security. This is why we welcome any initiative strengthening the human rights of women at work, such as the international convention against gender-based violence in the workplace being discussed within the ILO.

Inside a Garment Factory in Bangalore

Gap said it was “deeply concerned” about the allegations and was now conducting due diligence to investigate and address these issues. “We are committed to making sure that the people who make our clothes work in safe conditions and are treated with respect. We’ve consolidated our supplier base to focus on partners that share our values and goals, and an increasing number of factories we source from are audited by ILO’s Better Work programme.

Promises are broken. This is what has been happening for the past several years. While Fashion Brands rake in the profits while garment workers break their backs to fulfill demand. All brands have publically promised to give supplies’ workers fair treatment. Companies are not living up to their promises. Celebrities abroad who are ready to pick up popular social causes seem immune to the problems faced by the people you dress them up and make them glamorous.