‘We need to support women workers in garment factories to raise their voices, so the industry can detect and tackle harassment’, says our associate director Margreet Vrieling on the eve of International Women’s Day.
More and more consumers are becoming aware of unfair working
conditions in the fashion industry, like child labour and low wages. But there
are other, less-known negative working practices that have become normalised,
such as gender-based harassment and violence in garment factories. ‘Harassment
and discrimination can be hard to spot on the factory floor’, shares Margreet.
‘But that doesn’t mean they don’t occur. We need to become more aware of this
and address it as proactively as possible.’
Vulnerable
Sexual harassment
and violence against women are widespread problems in the garment industry,
where women make up about 80 percent of the workforce. In many garment
factories, production pressure is high, and yelling—often sexually explicit—is
common practice. Women garment workers are often young, poor and living in a
society dominated by strong gender hierarchies. A disturbingly high
percentage of garment workers report verbal and physical abuse as well as
sexual harassment, including assault and rape.
Preventing and
solving cases of harassment in garment factories requires a joint approach.
Vrieling: ‘Factory managers, garment brands and NGOs such as ours all need to
take responsibility to ensure that workplaces are free from harassment. Brands
need to know that this is happening and act on it; our auditors need to be able
to spot it; everyone who buys clothes should be aware of it.’
Gender stereotypes
For sustainable
solutions, women workers need to be supported in voicing their complaints.
‘Women need to feel safe enough to talk about harassment and feel supported by
factory management’, explains Vrieling. ‘By lending our voices and platforms to
their fight, these workers can speak out against the injustices they face every
day. Brands and factories must be held accountable for responding to these
injustices.’
As a way of
addressing gender-based violence, FWF and its member brands have established anti-harassment
committees in factories in Bangladesh and India. Workers in these
factories are slowly starting to speak out and work towards solutions. Also in
India, FWF ran a supervisor
training programme. By training women workers to become supervisors,
the programme aimed to reduce economic discrimination and change gender
stereotypes. Male supervisors were trained to become more aware of gender
matters and violence-free conflict solving methods.
8 March celebration
On 8 March, FWF
together with Dutch garment brands, the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garment
and Textiles, Plan Nederland, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs will
celebrate International Women’s Day in The Hague. Dutch designer Monique
Collignon, UN Youth Ambassador Hajar Yagkoubi and SER representative Jef
Wintermans will speak during the event.