Sunday, August 29, 2010

Sri Lanka: Garment factories exploiting Northern girls, union charges



By Chris Kamalendran | The Sunday Times
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A garment sector trade union leader charged yesterday that some garment manufacturers were seeking cheap female labour from the one time battle areas of the north.“Factory workers were leaving due to poor wages, work and living conditions. Most in the north are ignorant of the labour laws and are falling prey,” Anton Marcus, President of the Progressive Free Trade Zone and Apparel Union told the Sunday Times.

“After many years of war, the people in these areas are ignorant of workers rights, wages and so on and are easy prey for the apparel operators. Most of the big names currently touring the north and east are known to be serious violators of labour laws,” Mr. Fernando charged.


He said there was a huge dearth of factory hands at the moment because many were leaving owing to poor wages and working and living conditions. “Therefore the apparel bosses have switched to the north and east where there is widespread unemployment. These people are willing to work for any wage and they care less about the working or living conditions. At the end of the day, these workers will be exploited,” he said.

Meanwhile politicians in the north and east have also begun to frown on the ad-hoc system of recruiting workers from the area. In one case a local MP stopped a group of Kilinochchi girls from being loaded into a bus before they were taken to a factory in Kandy.

TNA politician S. Sritharan said they had no objection to the recruitment but it should be done in a proper manner. “These girls are just loaded on to buses. No one knows where they are heading for. There should be some transparency in the whole issue.

I have taken the matter up with the authorities,” he said.He said that even some security forces personnel were openly assisting in the apparel operators’ campaign to recruit unsuspecting girls.

Lasantha De Silva with Timex Garments admitted they were involved in a recruitment drive in the north and east but said there was no illegality in it.

© The Sunday Times

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1 comment:

Vidusha said...

I am curious... What exactly is the problem - and where is the 'exploitation' : as a journalist, should you not find out more? Reading this, I had the distinct feeling that you were leaning on saying there IS something 'fishy' going on. Trust me, the garment trade in SL is FAR FAR better than anything I have seen in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia or even Indonesia ! It has standards far greater than even Europe and US - and infact many, including the 'giants' of the trade have come to Sri Lanka to 'learn' from our factories. MAS, Brandix, the Hydramani Group and many others have truly set the benchmark for 'ethical' production, and for extremely high standards of compliance.

What you SHOULD check - if you know anything about the compliance standards a factory needs to maintain - is to first see if the Timex plant is WRAP, ETI or equivalent certified. Unless you want to say that international bodies such as WRAP are duped, then you can rest easy knowing the factory complies with rather stringent standards stipulated.

Be a little responsible in writing. Don't assume - get to know ! If you think I am talking nonsense, talk to the Chairman of the WRAP Board, Steve Jesseph : steve@jesspeh.com : and find out for yourself about the standards our industry maintains overall. Do NOT try to disrepute what an entire industry does by homing in on something that even you don't know for sure actually happens !

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