Unbearable harassment
April 2022 9
1 The fashion industry’s role in creating conditions for endemic GBVH Our findings – based on the testimonies of 90 women garment workers – reveal GBVH is endemic to India’s garment industry, long predating the pandemic and largely driven by brand purchasing practices. Every woman worker we spoke to reported either directly experiencing or witnessing GBVH – including workplace discipline practices and sexual violence and harassment – in their factories, perpetrated by male supervisors and managers who drive them to meet unreasonable production targets set by fashion brands. These findings demonstrate violence on the factory floor cannot be dismissed as just a factory-level problem; rather, it must be understood as an industry-wide culture of violence. Women garment workers also reported sexual harassment and violence from men in positions of authority within the factory, as well as co-workers. However, GBVH most commonly took place in the context of employment relationships, where women held subordinate roles in relation to male supervisors, line managers and mechanics tasked with fixing their machines. The most routine forms of sexual harassment disclosed included sexual jokes, catcalling, touching women on their cheeks, buttocks and breasts and sexual advances from supervisors and managers, especially among young women workers and trainees. Women also described managers offering to reduce production targets and increase pay in return for sexual favours. Other recurrent forms of abuse perpetrated by male supervisors were non-sexual physical and verbal abuse, coercion, threats of retaliation, mandatory overtime and denial of bathroom and lunch breaks. These forms of abuse constitute GBVH as the women were targeted based on their gender and this abuse disproportionately affected women. India is the world’s second-largest manufacturer and exporter of garments after China, with the country’s garment industry directly employing approximately 12.9 million people in factories and millions more in informal settings. This workforce is overwhelmingly comprised of young women workers who produce garments for global fashion brands, with the United States and the European Union receiving almost half of the country’s total apparel exports.
