The #MeToo movement has put the spotlight on dramatic stories about sexual abuse and sexual harassment towards women in different industries - from film to media, from music to science and politics. Quite a few stories involving the fashion industry also came out, often focusing on cases of abuses, harassment and assault involving well-known industry figures. But there are other stories of abuse in fashion that are not often told, the stories of female workers in garment factories producing clothes for fast fashion retailers.
In 2018 there was for example an investigation about how the fast fashion deadlines in Asian-based factories (in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka), working as suppliers for Gap and H&M, were putting pressures on workers, subjecting them to harassment and violence. In multiple cases, workers reported incidents of gender-based violence, threats and abuse.
These are not unknown situations and, if you follow the news, you may spot several features about NGOs highlighting how abuse can be a daily reality for female garment workers pushed to meet unrealistic targets under extreme pressure or to work unpaid overtime in different factories linked with the supply chains of fast fashion retailers. Verbally and physically abused, beaten and kicked as punishment for not meeting production quotas, these workers are powerless.
The latest case in the news was the one about the killing of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 20-year-old Dalit garment worker at an H&M supplier, Natchi Apparels in Kaithian Kottai, Tamil Nadu (India). Kathiravel's family claimed that the 20-year-old, who had been working at the factory for more than two years to put herself through higher education, was asked by a supervisor to go to the Natchi Apparels factory at the beginning of January, but she never came back home.
Kathiravel was found "raped, poisoned and strangled to death", four days later, on 5th January, in a farmland near her home, allegedly murdered by her supervisor, after months of sexual harassment and intimidation on the factory floor. The supervisor confessed and was charged with her abduction and murder.
Both her family and the local Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU) representing female workers at Natchi Apparels, claim that Kathiravel had actually tried to report the harassment she was suffering at work, a factory where, according to witnesses, gender-based violence is widespread, but no action was taken. Natchi Apparels is owned by Eastman Exports, India's fourth largest garment export company supplying H&M and other western brands and companies including Lidl.
Kathiravel's family faced pressure to accept financial compensation and sign documents releasing the H&M supplier of any responsibility for her death (H&M stated it was not aware or party to this). According to their statements, at the end of January, Eastman Exports managers sent a group of 50 men to their village. They forced their way into their home and demanded that they accept a cheque for £5,000 (500,000 rupees) and sign documents they had not read.
Social media users demanded on the brand's Instagram page "Justice for Jeyasre Kathiravel", and embroidery hoop artist Bryony Porter, whose needle is mighter than the sword and sharper than the tongue and who often creates pieces to raise awareness about the dark side of fast fashion and exploitation in garment factories, posted on her Instagram page TickOver one of her pieces, reading "Call on H&M to demand an investigation into the gender based violence resulting in Jeyasre Kathiravel a garment worker in Tamil Nadu factory being raped and killed after months of sexual harassment."
H&M launched an independent third-party investigation of alleged incidents of harassment at Eastman Exports and stated it is working to improve worker safety in its factories in Tamil Nadu. But the killing is the result of negligence by Eastman Exports and H&M to tackle widespread gender-based violence. According to witnesses working at Natchi Apparels, Kathiravel was sexually harassed multiple times by the supervisor, who has a history of sexually harassing women.
Many garment producers supplying fast fashion retailers do not have CCTV cameras on the factory floor, so that specific incidents can't be reported. Women workers often think sexual harassment as something normal in the workplace and know that complaining means becoming a target, having to live in fear of retaliation or being simply fired.
In many ways the only way to make sure these factories comply with the regulations is for their suppliers to keep an eye on them, dropping them will not stop the circle of violence and abuse. Indeed, when a supplier drops a factory for such reasons, the factory can't be considered as accountable anymore and moves to work with the next retailer.
The conditions of the garment workers in fast fashion supplier factories have been exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic. Many workers lost their jobs when orders were cancelled, but other apparel workers in countries such as Bangladesh are being rehired for even lower pay.
H&M seems to continuously launch events and initiatives to promote sustainability, but maybe producing less, ending workplace abuse and sexual harassment, rising wages and stopping greenwashing could be the real solutions to its problems. We, as consumers, are all responsible: it is easy to go out and buy a new garment without thinking about where it comes from, but this attitude has got to stop if we want gender-based violence to be eradicated from the garment factories and workers in the supply chain to live a dignified life.
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