Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SAAPE is a network of like-minded civil society organisations, mass-based groups and movements,
academics, trade unions, community based organisations and activists from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, working to jointly strategize and take actions to
contribute towards poverty eradication and achieve effective changes in the economic and socio-
political arena to combat the harmful economic policies of globalisation, privatisation and neo-liber-
alisation.
The Alliance aims to build solidarity and a shared civil society vision for the region, strengthen and
support national level organisations working on key issues.The Alliance facilitates research to sup-
port advocacy and lobbying activities aimed at regional and national level decision-makers of the
South highlighting the concerns and perspectives of marginalised groups and advocate pro-poor
policies and to consolidate their struggles and experiences to influence the international players,
particularly of the North.
The SAAPE Secretariat is based in Kathmandu at the office of Rural Reconstruction Nepal.
Zeenat Hisam
Ms. Zeenat Hisam, assoicated with Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) as Senior Research
Associate, holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies, specializing in Women & Development, from the Institute
of Social Studies, the Hague, the Netherlands.
R
ight to freely form and join organiza-
tions to safeguards one's economic
interests and civil liberties at work-
place is enshrined in international
covenants and the countries' constitutions.
Yet, women workers, by and large, are not
able to exercise this right. The barriers that
restrict women from organizing to bargain
collectively for better pay and conditions
include discriminatory attitude of male trade
union leadership and co-workers, domestic
workload and responsibilities, social atti-
tudes, and restricted mobility. Anti-union
tactics adopted by employers, i.e. dismissal
from work, intimidation and harassment of
union members and office bearers, also keep
women away from organizing and participat-
ing in union activities.
ening of their representation and voice at
Historically, workers' organizations and trade
workplace. Though in the current decade,
unions in the subcontinent have been male-
Bangladeshi women workers in the ready-
dominated in terms of both membership and
made garment (RGM) sector have emerged
leadership, and restricted to the formal sec-
in the forefront of labour activism, spear-
tor. In recent decades, trade unionism has
heading workers' protests and contesting
weakened due to restructuring of work rela-
terms and conditions of work.
tions and expansion of informal economy
compelling alternate forms of organizing and
This brief paper attempts to investigate the
support mechanisms to emerge, even if
status of women workers in textile/apparel
weak and sporadic.
industries of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and
explore the extent of mobilization and organ-
In the South Asian context, a key determi-
ization of women workers in the context of
nant of weak representation and organization
weakened trade unionism in the two coun-
of women as workers is the patriarchal con-
tries. The study seeks to analyze the nature
struct of work and gender as embedded in
and extent of women's contestation of barri-
the local culture and religious ideology.
ers and negotiation of space as defined
Women's growing induction in the manufac-
through the institutionalized mechanisms of
turing sector in Pakistan and Bangladesh—
control and cultural barriers in the Muslim
since the last three decades—and their
societies of the two countries.
increasing role in export economy, particu-
larly in Bangladesh, have not led to strength-
Indicators 2009
A small survey of 500 women workers workers. In the first phase, the two-member
employed at 79 small and medium-sized team visited factories located in close prox-
units mainly in three towns of Karachi imity in a given area, mostly during lunch
(Baldia, SITE, Orangi), was undertaken by break, either through contacts with women
PILER in collaboration with the Hoisery workers there, or disguised as job-seekers.
Garments Textile Workers General Union Once the guard let them inside the factory,
Sindh (a fledgling unregistered union/group the team talked to a few women and got
with 500 members in Karachi) during their home contact or mobile phone num-
February to May 2009. bers. Appointments for interviews were
sought for late evenings when workers
As the factories do not allow outsiders in to return home or during their day off from
the premises, the Karachi Hoisery and work.
Garments Workers General Union activist,
along with a PILER junior research associate, The Survey 2009 revealed 43.2 per cent
chalked out a strategy to approach women women of age between 19 to 24 years and
of work in the Export Processing Zones are relatively No specific data is available on trade unions
in textile/garments sector in general. Power
better. loom sector in the city of Faisalabad is, how-
ever, an exception where a strong large-
scale mobilization of (all-male) workers has
Conclusion
The brief and cursory comparison of the sta-
tus of women workers in the textile/gar-
ments manufacturing sector in Bangladesh
and Pakistan indicates that despite apparent
similar socio-economic conditions of the
two countries and the shared patriarchal cul-
ture and religious ideology underpinning the
status of women, female workforce in the
garment sector in Bangladesh is better mobi-
lized and is increasingly contesting its rights
at the workplace. The contributing factors
are identified as greater self-empowerment
of women realized through increasing
access to basic rights (education, reproduc-
tive health, micro-credit) and external sup-
NGO or labour support group entirely focus- portive mechanisms that facilitate women's
ing on women workers' issues. awareness of their rights at workplace and
build their capacity for representation and
In Bangladesh, the issues of labour relations negotiation. Though women in the RMG sec-
in the RMG sector and the role of women in tor are still far from reaching the goal of
it, dynamics of women empowerment and unionization and collective bargaining, exter-
analysis of women's mobilization and organ- nal factors and the larger environment is
ization have been studied extensively by conducive to their struggle.
researchers, academicians and labour
activists. In comparison, the evolution of
women's induction in labour force and the
current status of women empowerment
have not been studied fully in Pakistan.
Shahida Sarkar,
President
National Garments Workers Federation
31/F Topkhana Road, Dhaka-1000.
Nazima Akhtar
Samitita Garments Sramik Federation
H/16/1, New Airport Road
Amtali, Mahakhali
Dhaka.