The Garment Industry

The garment industry is a huge economic player in the Indian market, contributing 14% to industrial production, 5% to the country’s GDP and 12% to the country’s export earnings.

It provides direct employment to approximately 35 million people, almost 80% of whom are women, and is the second-largest provider of employment after agriculture. However, these jobs do not necessarily come with the rights and wages that workers are legally entitled to. A surplus of young workers in need of employment, coupled with repressive management policies and weak labour regulations, have led to poor wages and a violation of garment workers’ human rights

The women working at these garment factories all live in poverty in a rural area of South India. The charity Action Aid, which supports more than 1,200 female garment workers across 45 villages in this specific region says forced overtime, verbal abuse, and poor working conditions were routine at the factories. Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India 2021