Unbearable Harassment: The Fashion Industry and Widespread Abuse of Female Garment Workers in Indian Factories
Bhattacharjee Shikha Silliman, 2022
Name of publisher/editor
Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Asia Floor Wage Alliance, and Society for Labour and Development
Co-author
Alysha Khambay
Geographic area
Asia
Summary & key words
Garment worker abuse in India’s factories has intensified due to fashion brands’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected testimonies from 90 women in 31 factories across three major garment-producing hubs in India: Delhi NCR, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. While garment workers reported GBVH on a daily basis before the pandemic, their experiences of GBVH at work intensified with successive COVID-19 waves, including reports of routine physical and verbal abuse, discrimination and unfair dismissal for pregnancy, widespread wage theft, lack of protection from COVID-19 and intensified work rates with inhumane and mandatory overtime, leading to exhaustion and increased accidents.