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

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco
majority of women workers are recruited directly: they present
themselves at the gates of the factory looking for a job. Only a small
number of workers reported having been recruited through a family
member, although a significantly larger number reported having
relatives working in the same factory. This was confirmed by one of
the managers:
Our firm has a policy of not taking on girls from the same family.
We avoid recruiting a girl if her sister works in the company as it
creates problems. If one of them is unhappy she influences the other,
or if the supervisor has problems with one, it has repercussions on
the other. So, instead of having one problem, we could have two, and
this upsets the work. (Head of factory)
It is important to note that it is only in the knitwear and garment
sectors that the factory heads avoid recruiting workers from the same
family: the work is individualized and family solidarity is seen by
some of them as impeding production. But in the carpet sector, where
recruitment is carried out in two stages, family solidarity is an asset.
The factory head or foreman first recruits the maalma and then, in
turn, she recruits the weavers from among her family. A more detailed
discussion of this sector appears below.
2. Training, apprenticeship and probation
The female labour force in the sample factories had a low level
of educational attainment: more than a third of the women workers
had no schooling at all. Another third had only attended primary
school and about one third had completed the first cycle of secondary
schooling. Vocational training was rare.
The majority of girls and women who have no schooling are
found in the carpet sector, where 75 per cent of those interviewed
were illiterate. Producing carpets requires an artisanal training which
does not need a specific education level. Indeed, this lack of education
was never raised as a problem in the interviews with the heads of the
carpet factories. Production is based on the artisanal know-how of
the experienced women. Apprenticeship is carried out informally,
with the maalma taking responsibility for teaching the craft to the girls
that she takes on. This gives her freedom in controlling the apprentices
that factory heads would not have.
The women workers with the highest levels of education are
found in the garment-making sector: only 12.9 per cent of them are
illiterate. Here the ability at least to read is an asset for the worker.
All the factory heads emphasized the importance of the worker
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