WMC Women Under Siege

Myanmar’s Garment Workers Are Fighting for Freedom. It’s Time We Fought with Them.

(Creative Commons)

Since Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup d’état on February 1, garment worker union members across the country have stood at the forefront of protests and marches. Thanks to their activism, there is now a long overdue spotlight on their struggle, both as workers and as allies in the movement against the coup. Yet, they are not only fighting for an end to military dictatorship; they are also fighting for the elimination of systemic harassment and violence that has plagued their lives long before the coup.

Myanmar’s antiquated labor system has created a breeding ground for this abuse. International sanctions were dropped in 2016 as Myanmar moved toward democracy and started to set its own labor standards. After the removal of these sanctions, the garment industry boomed. Western brands seeking cheap labor flocked to the country, setting up numerous factories. In 2018, the garment industry accounted for 31 percent of all of Myanmar’s exports.

Of course, with this increase in demand came a parallel increase in the need for supply. Factories are opening every week, and 600 factories now employ around 450,000 workers. These employees work up to 11-hour days, six days a week, producing clothes for brands such as H&M, Gap, Inditex (which owns Zara), and Primark.

Many factories lack a ventilation system and workers report not getting enough water breaks. During the summer, workers must sit outside to eat lunch, scorching in the unbearable heat.

Perhaps the most shocking inequality at the center of these inhumane working conditions is the gender disparity: 80 percent of the world’s garment workers are women, some starting in the industry as young as 13. In Myanmar, the number is even higher, at 90 percent. The reasons for such disparities are complex, but women are often hired due to cultural perceptions of passivity. Based on this perception, factory employers see women as easier to control and more likely to accept poor labor conditions and long hours.

These cultural perceptions also spur the sexual assault and harassment of workers. Workers as young as 18 often endure sexual comments and groping from contract workers, supervisors, or peers. According to a 2021 report from the International Labor Organization (ILO), 42.5 percent of women workers in 16 Myanmar garment factories have been sexually harassed at work. Even outside factory walls, workers experience harassment, with more than 40 percent of them reporting harassment while traveling to and from work.

What’s more, workers must undergo routine pregnancy testing. According to ILO representative Catherine Vaillancourt-Laflamme, “A significant proportion of women interviewed seemed to have been asked to go through a pregnancy test before securing employment in the factories.” These routine tests are done to prevent factory owners from paying the legally-mandated 98-day maternity leave, keeping workers at work. Knowing that the garment industry views having children as incompatible with continuing employment, women in Myanmar “feel continuing pressure to quit work when they have children,” according to ILO.

For many women in the industry, the ILO report was the first time they’d ever spoken about harassment. Vaillancourt-Laflamme explained that the reason for this is that workers likely didn’t understand the difference between “consensual workplace ‘teasing’ between friends and coworkers, and what constitutes ‘sexual harassment.’”

Workers have urged brands with factories in the country to denounce the military takeover and to protect workers from being fired or harassed. In March, H&M became the first major retailer to cease placing further orders with its 45 suppliers in Myanmar. Serkan Tanka, H&M’s country manager in Myanmar, cited “practical difficulties and an unpredictable situation limiting our ability to operate in the country, including challenges related to manufacturing and infrastructure, raw material imports and transport of finished goods.” To the disappointment of workers, H&M said nothing about protecting workers from violence and discrimination.

In May, H&M resumed placing orders in the factory. In an emailed statement quoted by Reuters, H&M claimed it made the decision to prevent mass unemployment of the garment workers and that, after due diligence, they found the company had no direct links with Myanmar’s military.

Thandar Ko — founder of women’s rights group BusinessKind, which educates garment workers on their rights — laments the lack of laws to protect workers from this daily nightmare. “I wish there was a law to protect women; that would be much better,” she said. “But there isn’t, so many workers are too scared to speak out about working condition problems or harassment.”

Still, some of these cries for protection are finally being heard, if not horribly late. In 2011, Myanmar’s government pledged to develop a comprehensive law on violence against women and began drafting the law in 2013. Five years later, without any updates, the law was introduced as the Prevention of Violence against Women (PoVAW) law, but it is still pending parliamentary adoption. Under PoVAW, female garment workers may find it easier to report these incidents.

However, PoVAW is not enough to fully protect women in the garment industry. In 2020, the Global Justice Center published a fact sheet detailing significant flaws with the law, including antiquated definitions of crimes, inconsistent terminology, and insufficient prohibitions and punishments. Even with these defects, the bill is still entangled in legislative limbo, making it ineffective in addressing this urgent crisis. Regardless, Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government can and should take note of the law’s faults, address and amend them, and commit to PoVAW’s swift adoption.

ILO, noting the uniqueness of this situation, has created the first international treaty on violence and harassment in the world of work, which came into force on June 25, 2021 — two years after it was adopted by ILO’s International Labor Conference. The treaty provides the first international definition of violence and harassment in the world of work, including gender-based violence and harassment.

To date, only six countries have ratified the treaty, and Myanmar is not one of them. Without ratification, the treaty does nothing more than add to the emerging international custom of workers’ rights. However, ILO has started a campaign pushing for the treaty’s ratification and implementation.

The fearless determination of garment workers as they proudly stand in protests and marches against the coup has turned the world’s eyes upon them. But it is time we paid attention to what happens within the factory walls that house them up to 11 hours a day. We should confront the fact that our shirts embroidered with “FEMINISM” may have been crafted by an underpaid woman who deals with relentless sexual harassment and violence.

While the creation of the ILO treaty and introduction of PoVAW are steps in the right direction, without ratification, they remain only a distant source of hope. The international community has the power to force the issue by making gender equality and worker’s rights a central plank of its actions against the military coup. And international retailers like H&M have an obligation to ensure their factories are harassment and discrimination free.

Garment workers are simply asking to be able to make a living for themselves without sacrificing their dignity. Myanmar will not be free until they can do so.





Courtney Vice is an intern at the Global Justice Center and in her final year of law school at Fordham University School of Law. During law school, she worked as a Crowley Scholar at the Fordham Leitner Center. Before law school, she was a board member of her university’s United Students Against Sweatshop (USAS) chapter and worked as a research assistant, assisting in categorizing country responses to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)’s recommendations. She holds a BA degree in Political Science with a minor in Philosophy from the University of Kentucky.



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