Garment Workers

COVID-19 impact on Vietnamese apparel and footwear workers: Workers’ Perspective

In April 2020, the Public Private Partnerships Cooperation Group for sustainable apparel and footwear sector in Vietnam, consisting of over 40 members from the Ministries of Industry and Trade Natural Resources and Environment, Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and VITAS, LEFASO, brands, development partners and domestic and international NGOs, conducted a comprehensive assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the apparel and footwear sector. The aim of the assessment was to seek solutions from policy perspectives, social security, sustainable economic development, environmental protection and the role of stakeholders in the supply chain to mitigate impacts of the pandemic. One of the key components of the assessment is this analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on AFS workers’ lives conducted by CARE and sponsored by TARGET and the National Federation of Christian Trade Unions in
the Netherlands (CNV). This report also references findings from the qualitative research conducted by the Center for Development and Integration (CDI).
Purposes of the assessment of COVID-19 impacts on apparel and footwear sector workers:
1. To analyze the impact of COVID-19 on workers’ lives in the apparel and footwear industry across three major areas: economic, health, and society with a focus on gendered impacts and employment relation.
2. To identify the needs of AFS workers, especially female workers, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. To provide recommendations to businesses, brands, associations, unions, governments and development organizations on supporting workers to recover from the impact of COVID-19.
The information and data included in this report represent the key findings of the COVID-19 impact
assessment study with specific policy implications for enterprises, trade unions and government. Read More...

2nd RAPID ANALYSIS How are female garment factory workers during COVID-19

CARE Bangladesh has conducted the mobile based 1st Rapid Analysis in April’20 to understand COVID-19 impacts on lives and livelihoods of female factory workers. That study reveals, 25% doesn’t know protection measures, 35% feels uncertain about salary, 35% faced food shortage, 28% were getting fear to loose job and 91% were suffering from anxiety. 2nd Rapid Analysis is a follow-up survey on the same target group keeping the same objective, looking into more deep-dive issues. Read More...

The Double Day: Exploring unpaid work and care for female garment workers in Bangladesh

The UK Government funded Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) Programme is a five-year initiative to enhance the economic empowerment of 300,000 women working in global value chains by 2022. WOW is delivered by a consortium comprised of BSR, CARE International, the University of Manchester, and Social Development Direct, and led by PwC.

WOW’s approach to reaching women workers is through partnerships with multinational companies and business initiatives to improve women’s participation in their supply chains. One such partnership is with a fashion retailer who expressed an interest in learning more about the unpaid care that female garment workers in their supply chains carry out—recognising it as a major barrier to women’s economic participation.

The WOW alliance entered into a collaborative partnership with the company to undertake original primary research into the unpaid work and care burden facing female garment workers in Bangladesh.
The research has been collated into an external report – The Double Day – launched in July 2020 by the WOW Alliance.
Read More...

Final Report On End Line Study of Promoting Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls in Clothing Industry Project

Employing more than 2.5 million women (60%), the RMG sector in Bangladesh is one of the largest sources of employment for women. CARE Bangladesh and UN Women partnered to undertake the Promoting Women Worker’s Empowerment Project as a 5 months pilot to help workers, particularly women, develop their skills and experience and access leadership opportunities which may lead to career advancement, improved work environment for the workers. The study was undertaken with several objectives- (i) To identify the progress on knowledge, skill and aspiration of women RMG workers in the working factories from the baseline (ii) To identify the initiatives that Management of the working factories are planning for career Advancement for women RMG workers (iii) To examine the appropriateness of the career pathways that was identified in baseline and identify the further recommendations for career Advancement for women RMG workers (iv) Evaluating the project indicators to measure the progress of the project (v) Developing a learning brief on the Project from baseline and end line . Read More...

GARMENT WORKER NEEDS ASSESSMENT DURING COVID19

The COVID19 pandemic has severely impacted the garment industry in Cambodia. As of July 2020, over 400 factories have temporarily or permanently closed down and over 150,000 workers are out of work.1 The garment industry employs approximately 750,000 workers in Cambodia, 89% of whom are women.
CARE’s Rapid Gender Analysis demonstrates the disproportionate impact that COVID19 has had on women in Cambodia and around the world. A lot of attention has been placed on the garment industry, but there is little detailed information available from the workers themselves on the impact of the pandemic and what support they need.
The objectives of this needs assessment are to:
• Better understand the needs of women garment workers during the COVID19 pandemic
• Develop evidence-based recommendations for CARE and civil society partners, workers’ organizations,
employers, brands and government stakeholders in Cambodia on how to best address the needs of women
garment workers during the COVID19 pandemic. Read More...

Outcome Harvesting evaluation OIKKO (Unity): Bangladesh

OIKKO (Unity in Bangla) was a 3 year project (March 2015 – February 2018) delivered by CARE Bangladesh with support from CARE Austria, with funding from the European Union and the Austrian Development Agency. The overall objective of the project was: a strong and united civil society promotes the implementation of fundamental labour rights in the ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh.
OIKKO was implemented through the following actors: CARE Bangladesh and 3 partners Sheva Nari O Shishu Kallyan Kendra (SHEVA, Gazipur), Agrajattra (AJ, Chittagong), and Karmojibi Nari (KN).
The main interventions of the project were:
• Forming solidarity groups of women RMG workers known as EKATA (Empowering Through Knowledge and Transformative Action).
• EKATA members with a high leadership potential were selected to form larger Community Worker Associations (CWA) to facilitate engagement and participation in trade unions and federation.
• Form Community Support Groups to help foster a supportive environment for the project.
• A national platform to engage civil society.
• Gender sensitisation training for trade union and federation leaders.
• Publications including commissioned research on, for instance, minimum wage.
• A national convention to take stock of OIKKO and share achievements. Read More...

Seema-final evaluation report

This 63 page document reports the results of the Solidarity and Empowerment through Education, Motiv... Read More...

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