Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco no money left over from their salary after paying for the costs of food and rent. The sending family household thus operated as a critical safety net. This became quite evident during the national political crisis of 1996, when many garment factories closed their doors or stopped payment of workers’ salaries. Unable to support themselves financially, a number of women went back to the village home during this time. Thus the garment work of the women cannot be understood simply as a strategy for enhancing the economic resources of the sending family household. As reflected in the understandings of the women and their families, garment work was a way of reducing the costs of maintaining the woman and paying for her marriage. The sending family household operates as an important economic safety net for the women. IV. Community support, opinion and garment work The process of becoming a garment worker is one that unfolds not only in the context of the household, but also the community in which the household is located. In this section I discuss some of the ways in which communities mediate the garment work entry process. I define community as the social circles and networks in which the worker and the sending family household are embedded, including kin, friends, neighbours and village folk. I focus on the sending community, or the community of which the woman is a part before she begins the process of becoming a garment worker. One of the ways in which the community can affect the garment entry process is by extending practical support for becoming a garment worker. This practical support is of various kinds: information about the availability, salaries and conditions of garment jobs; assistance in finding a job, coming to Dhaka, and locating a place to stay. For those women based in Dhaka practical support was generally extensive, reflecting the fact that there are currently few low-income areas in Dhaka where there are not women who are engaged in garment work. Pakhi, in her early to mid-teens, had been working as a helper for about seven months. She, her parents and siblings had migrated from Potoakhali about a year ago, driven by landlessness. After coming to Dhaka, they settled into a bastee (squatter settlement) inhabited by people from their area of origin. Pakhi describes how neighbours led her towards garment work: After coming to Dhaka my mother and I broke bricks to make money. There were some girls in the bastee working in garments. When 168
Becoming a garment worker they first told us [mother and I] about it, I said, “Will I be able to do it?” I wasn’t sure, because I never had a job (chakri) before. The girls said that I could do the work; you didn’t need to be educated to work in garments. They said that first I would be a helper and then after I learned the work I could change factories and become an operator. My mother asked the girls to take me to the factory with them. They told me what to say and do during the interview. After going to two factories I found a job. For rural migrant women workers, the practical support required for successful entry into the garment labour force is necessarily more extensive than that needed by those living with their families in the city. Relatives and fellow village folk who were already involved in the garment business typically provided the rural women with the necessary information and assistance to make the transition successfully into garment work. For obvious reasons, such assistance was most likely in those villages with an established flow of persons into the garment industry. Where such an established flow did not exist, the process of garment entry was necessarily more complex. In a few cases women indicated that they had been recruited by garment factory owners who originated from their village areas. These owners were members of well-known, respected and prosperous families. In other cases of “pioneering” garment work, the process of garment entry began with a trip to Dhaka for purposes other than working in garments. Jahanara, for example, went to the city to visit her uncle (chacha). After arriving there, she found out about garment work and decided to try it. In another case, a woman came to Dhaka with the goal of living in her uncle’s (mama) home and going to school. But soon after her arrival she found her uncle unwilling to pay for her upkeep, a situation that drove her into garment work. Thus in all these cases, the decision to enter garments began only after the worker arrived in the city, where she was exposed to the information and resources necessary to enter into garment work. The experience of becoming a garment worker is shaped not only by the practical support extended by the community, but also by the community’s attitudes and evaluations of the meaning of garment work for women. Virtually all of those interviewed indicated that a layer or segment of community opinion was extremely negative in its view of women’s garment work. While such unfavourable ideas were present everywhere, they appeared stronger in areas where the population of garment workers was small rather than extensive. Objections to women’s garment work were framed according to sociocultural norms. That is, women garment workers were sexually loose 169
Page 1 and 2:
Women’s Employment in the Textile
Page 3 and 4:
This United Nations Research Instit
Page 6:
Acknowledgements Many people have b
Page 9 and 10:
notwithstanding the inertia of the
Page 11 and 12:
Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
Page 13 and 14:
xii VII. Contribution of different
Page 15 and 16:
Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
Page 17 and 18:
Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
Page 19 and 20:
Introduction women have been tradit
Page 21 and 22:
Introduction The chapters on Bangla
Page 23 and 24:
Introduction occurs, on average, at
Page 25 and 26:
Introduction women workers related
Page 27 and 28:
Introduction in low-income countrie
Page 29 and 30:
Introduction by repaying their “d
Page 31 and 32:
Introduction participate in labour
Page 33 and 34:
Introduction their bargaining power
Page 35 and 36:
Introduction processing zones hypot
Page 37 and 38:
Introduction IV. The case studies T
Page 39 and 40:
Introduction experience in garment
Page 41 and 42:
Introduction V. Conclusion Although
Page 43 and 44:
Introduction improved technology. T
Page 45 and 46:
Introduction References Afsar, R. (
Page 47 and 48:
Introduction Household Power Relati
Page 49 and 50:
Wage discrimination by gender in Mo
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Gender and employment in Moroccan t
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Gender dimensions of labour migrati
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Table 1: Total number of male and f
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132: Gender dimensions of labour migrati
Page 143 and 144: Table 9: Distribution of the sample
Page 165 and 166: Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
Page 167 and 168: Becoming a garment worker garment w
Page 169 and 170: Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
Page 171 and 172: Becoming a garment worker view of t
Page 173 and 174: Becoming a garment worker that time
Page 175 and 176: Becoming a garment worker 2. “I e
Page 177 and 178: Becoming a garment worker out that
Page 179 and 180: Becoming a garment worker being. Th
Page 181: Becoming a garment worker support t
Page 185 and 186: Becoming a garment worker V. Conclu
Page 187 and 188: Becoming a garment worker is a job
Page 189 and 190: Becoming a garment worker Endnotes
Page 191 and 192: Becoming a garment worker Cole P. D
Page 193 and 194: Women’s employment in the textile
Page 233 and 234:
Women’s employment in the textile
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
Page 247 and 248:
Page 249 and 250:
Page 251 and 252:
Page 253 and 254:
Page 255 and 256:
Page 257 and 258:
Page 259 and 260:
Page 261 and 262:
Page 263 and 264:
Page 265 and 266:
Page 267 and 268:
Page 269 and 270:
Page 271 and 272:
258 Women’s employment in the tex
Page 273 and 274:
260 Annex Table 2:Level of wages an
Page 275 and 276:
show all

Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?