How can we tackle gender inequality in the fashion industry?
Learn more about CARE International’s Made by Women strategy to empower 8 million women garment workers in Asia by 2021.
How can we end sexual harassment in the workplace?
· We need global legislation
· We need private sector practices that work
To find out more about CARE International’s work please visit their website.
Women play a really critical role in the global garment value chain. So there are 80 million garment workers in Asia alone and three quarters of the world's garment workers are women. So it's most likely that the clothes, all the clothes that we're wearing right now, are made by women. Women play three main roles in the garment sector. Firstly it's the women who are the factory workers sitting in those long production lines up to 12 hours a day painstakingly sewing the buttons onto our jeans, or the sleeves onto our tops, and those are often the machine operators or the helpers, the lowest paid and the most vulnerable jobs in the garment sector.
Second kind of role that they play, or could play more of is supervisors in the factories. In the last garment factory that I was in, 70 percent of the workers were women but only 10 percent of the supervisors were women. So women are hugely underrepresented in the supervisors, which are of course the higher paid positions. Even though it's most likely that it was women who made all the clothes that we wear. Actually gender inequality is a huge problem in the industry. So the first kind of inequality is on incomes. Women tend to be in the lowest paid, most vulnerable jobs. So as a result of that their earnings will fall short of a living wage. There's an enormous gender pay gap and many of them are living in poverty. So the other inequality that that CARE is particularly concerned about is gender based violence in the in the sector. So even though this is already unreported and often invisible issue, it's actually something that women garment workers are facing on a daily basis. CARE's recent research in Cambodia with women garment workers, reported that one in three of them have reported being sexually harassed in the last 12 months. And I was really moved by the story of one of those garment workers, a really brave woman called Arunny who shared her experiences and she said that there were often comments made by the men in the factory that made her really really uncomfortable. And then one evening she was working late in order to earn extra money for overtime and a man came up behind her and sexually assaulted her. And of course she was really scared and frightened and didn't know what to do. And one of the challenges and biggest challenges for women like Arunny in that kind of situation is that the perpetrators of this kind of assault are often their supervisors, their bosses.
So women like Arunny find it very difficult to make a complaint to raise it as an issue without the fear of losing their job and being instantly dismissed and therefore losing all the money which of course they are so desperately in need of. And to make matters worse women like Arunny and that kind of situation have no real voice in the factory. So the management and the factories, the trade unions and the factories which are supposed to represent the workers, they're often made up of men as well. And it can often be quite patriarchal sorts of organizations. So therefore, the concerns of women often get ignored and just dismissed out of hand. therefore, in situations like that, women like Arunny have no one to turn to. So the reasons why gender based violence exist in garment factories there are a few reasons for that. Firstly labor rights of women just aren't respected within the garment factories. So for example, things like the minimum salaries that they are owed, or the fact that they're supposed to be able to take sick leave, are often simply not respected. And there's a real power imbalance between the workers who are mostly women and the supervisors and the management who are mostly men.
So women often feel very scared to be able to raise any issues without the fear of losing their jobs and because they're so vulnerable they need that income. But there are also issues not just specific to the garment sector but also reasons why gender based violence persists, which come from society at large. What we would call social norms, which are perceptions or stereotypes or behaviors that devalue women. So for example , the perception that a woman's role is in the home, caring for the family, and that she shouldn't work, or for example, the perception that women simply don't have the capability to make a decision and therefore can't have supervisory positions which are of course higher, higher incomes. or for example the the idea of a tendency for sexual harassment and sexual abuse is this kind of a normal acceptable behavior pattern. So these social norms are really deeply entrenched in the whole of society and to really address gender based violence in the garment sector, we need to work both in the sector itself but also start challenging some of those stereotypes that devalue women in society at large. CARE has been working towards gender equality in the garment sector for over 15 years and we have a really bold ambition to support the empowerment of 8 million women in the garment sector under our initiative called 'Made by Women.' And under that initiative we're doing a number of different things and working with several key groups within the sector. First of all we're working with the women themselves. So we're supporting training programs that give them both a knowledge about their rights but also the life skills, like communication skills,which equip them with the ability to express their own issues raised their complaints and be able to raise the issues and in a positive way with the management and the supervisors in the factories. And that really gives them the confidence they need to be able to address some of the issues and the discrimination that they face. We also work with the factory supervisors and the factory managers. So we've done research which shows that if you just work with the women and give them training then actually without taking the supervisors along the journey and getting them on board to, that can increase conflict on the production line which of course it has unintended consequences and potentially increases the risk of sexual harassment. So we work very closely with the supervisors and the managers in the factory as well and they attend the training too to understand what women's empowerment is and what types of behavior are acceptable in the workplace. At CARE we also do a lot of work engaging men, not just in the factories, but also husbands and families of the women themselves.
And that's also really important, because going back to the social norms and the perceptions of women, about the roles of women, if a woman wants to have for example progress to a supervisory level and she has the training to do that, but then she goes home and her husband feels that actually the role of the women is to stay in the house and look after the family, or even if he does allow, allow her to progress to a supervisory role he'll still expect her salary to be handed to him. It's really important that go on a journey together of understanding and challenging the perceptions of the roles of both women and men and working together to perhaps take on more equal share of the work in the household. Gender based violence in the sector is obviously really awful for women but it's also a real problem for the industry as a whole. Because actually CARE's research shows that the industry is losing about 90 million dollars a year in lost productivity as women obviously leave their jobs or are absent due to the effects of this kind of sexual harassment.
So not only is it bad for women, it's bad for the industry as a whole, because all of that money could be potentially reinvested in the industry to improve working conditions for women. So addressing the issue of gender inequality in the garment sector is obviously a really important part of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal number 5, which is all about gender equality. But it also links to other goals. So for example goal number 1 is no poverty, and it's women in the garment sector who are in the lowest paid most vulnerable jobs. So we can't address poverty without addressing gender equality either in the garment sector or in any sector.
And then one of the other goals is of course decent work. And what we're talking about here is good jobs, well-paid jobs, that respect women's rights and enable them to earn a decent living. And so of course again you can't do that without addressing gender equality. So it's most likely that the clothes that we're all wearing today are made by women. And so whether you work in fashion or just love fashion, there's something that everyone can do to support gender equality for the women who make our clothes. If you work in fashion then ask questions, talk to the other organizations, talk to the suppliers, find out what conditions are like for women in the supply chains, find out what those companies are doing to improve conditions for women in those supply chains, ask questions. So you're someone who loves fashion. There are loads of things you can do to support the change towards gender equality of female garment workers. And I think there are three key things that you can do. Number 1 speak up get involved in the conversation. Join the campaign #thisisnotworking and add your voice alongside the voices of millions of garment workers, not just garment workers but workers all over the world in lots of different sectors, because violence and harassment in the world of work is not okay. Secondly use your money muscle you have power through your buying power and through your spending power. So buy clothes that are specifically made by women from ethical companies or donate to organizations such as CARE who are working towards achieving gender equality for female female garment workers throughout the world. And thirdly don't just take my word for it. Listen to the voices of really brave women garment workers
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