26th June, 2023

By Priyadharshini Sivarajah

“When out in public, we always walk with our heads down. We face lewd harassment from [grown] men and boys, they whistle and make fun of us. In the early hours of the morning when we leave for work and when we return at night, they’re waiting to harass us. This has become the norm now; we are used to this kind of behaviour.” The 28-year-old garment worker Darushi’s voice barely flinches at the thought of these daily trials. But behind the calm exterior belies a pain that is felt by many women like Darushi.

Derogatively known as the “Juki women”, Darushi and her co-workers have become synonymous with a particular brand of sewing machine that is used across Sri Lanka’s booming garment manufacturing industry, yet their lives remain threadbare.

Darushi’s story is a familiar tale. She hails from Monaragala, one of the most isolated parts of the country. As the eldest child, she took on the responsibility of earning the main family income three years ago. But her work revealed to her a world of misogyny and discrimination that she was not prepared for.

Anuradhapura native, Vimala, 33,  is a widow with two children and an elderly mother to look after.  Her husband died during his service with the army and Vimala has been the main breadwinner ever since. But, unlike Draushi, Vimala is far more forthright about the plight of female garment workers. “Respect us. We are also women like any other women and want to live respectfully with our heads held high,” she demands. “We don’t understand what we’ve done for people to treat us with such contempt.”

Both Darushi and Vimala work within the celebrated Katunayake Free Trade Zone on the outskirts of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. The first of its kind in Sri Lanka, the zone is a vast area, housing many of the textile factories that have contributed to garment manufacturing becoming the third largest industry in the country.

Latest figures suggest that the garment export accounts for 44 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total export income. The industry employs approximately   400,000 people across over 300  ‘registered’ factories and 80% of the workforce is made up of women. Even with such strength in numbers their plight remains unchallenged.

“I have been working in a garment factory for a long time. As a woman, I have suffered so much here. We can tolerate much of what we are subjected to but treating us like sex workers is unbearable.” Holding back her tears, 25-year-old Raji laments the daily rituals she faces. “Why does everyone hate and humiliate us this much?” Raji got married at a young age and said she works to take care of her husband, who is going through rehabilitation for drug addiction, and his family. Originally from Negombo, she has been working in the same garment factory for the past four years. “The society looks at us differently when it comes to women working in the garment industry. This is how we are struggling to ease our poverty, at least to some extent. But no one seems to have realized this,” she says, wiping away tears.

According to Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment (BOI), the sector generated $5.6 billion for the country in 2022.  According to Joint Apparel Association Forum Sri Lanka (JAAFSL) popular international brands including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Levi’s,  Nike, Victoria’s Secret, Pink, Next, Marks and Spencer, Columbia Sportswear, and Ralph Lauren all manufacture their products in the country, exporting to the United States, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. But why is industry seen as a curse rather than a cure to the women desperate for regular income?

Labor rights are often ignored or watered down, leading to an unprotected environment in which sexual exploitation is rife. Raji recalls in horror the normalized use of sexual bribes when the ‘Juki’ women need help to maintain their level of productivity with substandard equipment.  “A sister who works with me had this experience. She had a huge work target that needed to be completed and the sewing machine repairer was constantly asking her for sexual favors in return for fixing her ‘Juki’ machine.”

According to women’s rights activist Yogeshwari Krishnan, in such a situation, even the benefits of laws relating to the right to work enjoyed by the rest of the ordinary people of the country are denied.

Citing the current call for proposed amendments to labor laws as a potential route to exploit these women further, she continued:

“Most of   the Employees Provident Fund, Employees Trust Fund, and maternity leave, which they are entitled to. Especially after the completion of five years of service. Instead, the factory managements take steps to terminate the services of those who have completed 5 years of service to avoid the payment of gratuity to the employees.

“For example, during the Covid 19 pandemic, the administration advised workers to stay at home by terminating their work contracts, citing the shortage of raw materials. But instead of rehiring them once things improved, they hired new people.

“We have also spoken to working women who are pregnant. They say they are given harder jobs like ironing, using heavy equipment, leading to undue physical exertion. When these concerns are pointed out to factory management and requests to be moved to less demanding roles are submitted, factory owners ignore them. Fearing this may lead to abortion, women workers are often forced to leave their jobs voluntarily. This seems to be a normal tactic in the garment factories from what we have seen.”

The long struggle

The plight of these ‘Juki’ women dates back to 1977, with the introduction of open economic policies in Sri Lanka. As a result of this new world of free markets and industrial investment, garment workers became “cheap laborers” without any bargaining power and trapped without the benefits and privileges of the country’s labor laws.

For the workers of Katunayake, the factory owners, investors, and international brands are all party to their exploitation, earning billions of dollars in profits. “Even under the Covid-19 lockdown, we were continuously working in the factories and bolstering the country’s fragile economy and our domestic and foreign employers,” say Darushi, Vimala and Raji in unison.

This power imbalance in the sector has produced some startling stories of neglect of basic rights and laws, as Indumathi Harihara Thamodharan, project activist of The Vizhuthugal Institute, recalls. “In 2019, some women from Trincomalee, Vavuniya and Kilinochchi had participated in one of our workshops.  They had told us that a pill their employers claimed was vitamin C was distributed to them every morning. After a few days of taking this tablet regularly they developed menses-related disorders. Only later did it transpire that this “Vitamin C “tablet, given to them by the administration of the garment factory, was in fact the birth-control pill. We proved this beyond doubt. We believe the factory management had resorted to this as regular menstruation of female employees was considered a major obstacle to achieving the targets of the factory.”

The Viluthugal Institute has been raising awareness of women’s rights and empowerment in the North and East of the country for the past few years and but for Indhumathi this case was a sobering reality check.  “While we were constantly trying to create noise about this incident, we were not able to take any meaningful steps as the country was under lockdown due to the pandemic. Deceiving workers to take birth control pills without their knowledge or consent is an absolute violation of human rights. After lodging our strong displeasure over this unethical, underhand practice, they were warned to give up this illegal requirement or face legal action. We believe this request was met and daily distribution stopped.”

 

But Chamila Thushari, national coordinator of the Federation of Sweatdrops (Dabindu), which advocates for the rights of women in the garment industry said, “Most of the factories, birth control pills are kept in such a way that they are easily accessible. But are they delivered in the correct manner? Who controls the distribution? Do the women workers consume them in the right way? This is why we have been regularly conducting programs around sexual and reproductive health screening with these women.”

 

According to activists we spoke to, this type of practice is an open secret. Women who come to work at garment factories are often instructed not to conceive for the first three to six months of their employment, fulfilling the economic needs of both their families and their employers. Activists also believe that despite this ‘agreement’, there is always the fear of losing their jobs if they become pregnant and the birth control pill is the only option open to them, whether it is under duress or not.

 

Looming crisis 

To exacerbate matters for the impoverished ‘Juki’ women, the recent call for potential amendments to existing labor law by the Ministry of Labor and Foreign Employment, has produced submissions from various organizations that could make working conditions even more challenging.  Although still at the consultation stage, NGOs and activists campaigning for the rights of workers have raised serious objections against these proposals and their potential impact on garment factory workers. They fear that these women could suffer even more discrimination in a less safe, less regulated working environment if the amendments are adopted into law. Campaigners say the proposed changes would lead to the adoption of new methods of oppression and further abuses of labor rights.

At present, the proposed amendments put forward by organizations in response to the government call are:

To extend the current eight-hour working day to 12 hours and introduce a four-day working week,  with no wages for the remaining three days.

Employers should be given the right to dismiss employees at any time. According to the existing law, if it is not a disciplinary issue, an employee should be dismissed ONLY with the permission of the Labor Commissioner and pay  proper compensation. (This procedure ensured the protection of hundreds of thousands of employees during the Covid period).

In case of unforeseen circumstances such as shortage of raw materials, malfunctioning of sewing machines, pandemic, etc. that employers may encounter, they should be able to pay half the salary to the employees or no salary at all.

The government should not interfere with wage issues relating to the private sector, except in the event of determining the minimum wage.

Employers themselves should be permitted to resolve issues with their employees in the matters of disputes and differences, since intervention and engagement of the Department of Labour consumes more time and money.

Provision of temporary employment through methods such as manpower organizations should be allowed; the ratio of permanent to temporary staff should be 50-50.

A request has been made for the introduction of part-time jobs.
For Lakmali Hemachandra, a lawyer working within labor rights, one proposed amendment, in particular, raises serious welfare concerns for female workers. “Although there are several aspects of the proposed Labor Amendment Act, the most important thing for me is the increase of 8 hours to 12 hours of work a day. This excess workload of four hours will cause much stress. This will affect the health of the employees, especially for women working in garment factories”.

But  Lakmali’s main worry surrounds the safety of night working for women “Night work is a major indicator for sexual harassment against women. This proposal is controversial because sexual harassment against women is common in garment industries and other export-oriented industries and the longer work patterns could compound this issue further.”

According Yogeswary Krishnan ,  the current working practices of the industry that put these women in unnecessary danger. At present, female garment workers should be permitted to work no more than 9 hours a day and no more than 45 hours a week as per the Factories Ordinance of Sri Lanka. But she claims that in reality, they work for 12 to 15 hours a day. Similarly, overtime should be no more than 60 hours per month. But they often work for 90 to 110 hours. And even if they are entitled to 14 days annual leave, it is rarely respected by employers. She also stresses the glaring lack of trade unions due to factory management blatantly violating the trade union ordinance, by not allowing the employees to form their own worker’s body.

Opposition parties have also been quick to voice their opinions on this process. Gamini Ratnayake, a former parliamentarian for JVP, and convenor of the National Centre for Free Trade Zone Workers is forthright in his thoughts on the proposal:

“This consultation and potential rewriting of Labor laws is a conspiracy by the government to reduce the number of workers. It is a deliberate attempt to reduce the number of workers citing the severe economic crisis. While economists have predicted a loss of $1 billion in Sri Lanka’s garment industry exports in the current year. These amendments, if passed, are likely to adversely affect women workers employed in the Free Trade zones. Allowing them to work at night and 12 hours of overtime will greatly affect these women and lead to more and more economic exploitation of them.”

Being heard

The international NGO Clean Clothes Campaign claims to run a global campaign to facilitate fair and ethical working environments for garment workers. Using a global network of more than 235 organizations in more than 45 countries, they provide direct assistance to victims subjected to violations of their workers’ rights. But according to Anton Marcus, a trade unionist and secretary of the Free Trade Zones General Employees Union, the reality sometimes doesn’t match the ambition when it comes to Sri Lanka’s ‘Juki’ women:

“We have informed Clean Clothes Campaign about the problems faced by these women. We have held talks with them. All this has been brought to their notice. But when the international brands question their suppliers here, they give their side of the justifications without the context or views of the workers affected. Both are exploiting the labor of these women and accumulating huge profits.

“Because of these women, they have become very rich. But an employee who works here earns only Rs. 16,000 a month. The value of the rupee, which has depreciated in Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, has further increased the profits of international corporations.  But the main issue here is the government’s readiness to sacrifice the workers and take any steps detrimental to their welfare to encourage investors into Sri Lanka. As a result, workers are being exploited very badly.”

For Anton the factory owners aren’t solely responsible for the current conditions of work. “The real employers of the workers in the garment factories are the international brands.  In other words, these are the women employees who sew their brands of garments in Sri Lanka. Therefore, they (the branded companies) should also be held accountable for the plight of these women”.

Activist Yogeshwari Krishnan feels that the international community has failed these women with platitudes of empty promises and takes aim at the UN’s celebrated global Sustainable Development Goals initiative (SDGs), a project that aims to address social, economic, and environmental challenges through 17 global objectives that both government  and private organizations work towards :

“The need for decent working conditions is mentioned as Goal 8 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.) Yet, decent working conditions in Sri Lanka have not been available to women working in the garment industry.

“The reality is deliberately concealed. Programs are designed and implemented accordingly to prevent genuine information from reaching them. Especially the HR departments  in some of these factories completely ignore the complaints from the women. As a result, these women conclude that there is no benefit in making complaints.

“This is the first problem. Next, the factory management presents a completely different atmosphere to the international parties who come for the annual audit.

“As far as we know the 5-6 selected ‘sample’ employees are well trained and given decent working conditions. Due to this, the factory receives a glowing report.”

Fellow campaigner Chamila Thushari, shared Yogeshwari’s thoughts. “We are taking sincere efforts to get these women to the trade unions. But they are scared to raise their voice for fear of losing their jobs. They are reluctant to even keep the information leaflets we provide.”

But for ‘Juki’ woman Darushi, her ambitions are far more modest and hopes a distant dream.

“We are earning dollars for Sri Lanka. We are going through a lot of hardships in the process. All we have are small dreams. We don’t need dollars to accomplish them. We need only a reasonable salary for the job we do with dignity and recognition. It is more than enough for us.”