cover image: Tainted Garments: The Exploitation of Women and Girls in India’s Home-Based Garment Sector

Tainted Garments: The Exploitation of Women and Girls in India’s Home-Based Garment Sector

1 Jan 2019

This report was published in January 2019 by the Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California, Berkeley. Siddharth Kara is the principal investigator and author of the report. The report analyses the working conditions of girls and women in the home-based garment sector in India. The Indian garment industry is second only to China in manufacture and export, the report states. It finds that mostly women and girls from marginalised communities work in the home-based garment sector, and manage to earn no more than 0.15 US dollars per hour. The study was undertaken in urban, peri-urban and rural areas around New Delhi, Jaipur, Shahjahanpur, Meerut, Bareilly, Sikandrabad, Farrukhabad and Hapur in northern India. In southern India, the study was conducted around Tirupur and Pollachi in Tamil Nadu.One thousand four hundred and fifty-two garment workers who worked from their homes were contacted during the research. This included full and part-time workers. These workers provided “finishing touches” on garments through embroidery, tasselling, button work, and more. This 56-page document is divided into 8 sections: Executive summary (Section 1); Overview of Research (Chapter 2); Overview of the Garment Sector in India (Chapter 3); Previous Studies of India’s Garment Sector (Chapter 4); Discussion of Relevant Law (Chapter 5); Discussion of Results by City (Chapter 6); The Garment Supply Chain (Chapter 7); Recommendations (Chapter 8).
exploitation child-labour women-and-labour marginalised-communities working-conditions garment-industry

Authors

Siddharth Kara

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India
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Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California, Berkeley

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