Women's Views on News |
| Garment workers: compensation call Posted: 04 Apr 2014 06:10 AM PDT
At least 27 global garment brands had recent or current orders in with the five garment factories in the building. Nearly all those who died or were injured were garment workers. Many had been ordered back into the unsafe building by factory owners despite the building being evacuated the day before when giant cracks appeared in the walls. They suffered terrible injuries, lost husbands and wives, children and parents, brothers and sisters; and will, as you can imagine, bear the physical and emotional scars for life. Shila Begum was one of the injured. She spent a whole day trapped under the rubble of the collapsed building. Shila Begum had been working in a factory inside Rana Plaza for over two years when she entered the building on 24 April last year. Within minutes of sitting behind her sewing machine the electricity went off and the generator kicked in. “I felt a shock and the floor gave way,” she said of the day. “People started running in chaos and the ceiling came down. I kept protecting my head, but I got stuck between the rubble. “My hand got stuck and I thought I would die. People around died.” She lay trapped in the rubble for a full day, and, like many of those around her, she was screaming out for help. Finally, at 5pm, someone came to rescue them. This month she is travelling over from Bangladesh to bring her story to consumers in Europe as part of a campaign to put pressure on brands to pay much-needed compensation. Bangladesh is the third-biggest exporter of clothes in the world after China and Italy; the garment industry makes up three-quarters of Bangladesh’s GDP. The industry has allowed millions of women from poor rural backgrounds to earn a living. Since the disaster – and public outcry – over 150 companies have signed the Accord on Fire and Safety in Bangladesh, a legally binding and independent agreement designed to make all garment factories in Bangladesh safe workplaces. While it is difficult to know how this agreement might be successfully implemented, the accord has revealed a shift in corporate social responsibility: it shows how far down the supply chain companies can be held responsible. This is, however, a legally binding agreement between companies and unions where companies commit to independent inspections and transparent reporting, including developing strong worker-management committees in factories. Brands have committed to working with factories to fix the problems, and where necessary, contributing financially to do so. And thanks to the efforts the accord, the alliance and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, 675 factories have been inspected. Meanwhile, 27 US brands have also set up their own non-legally binding industry-led version, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Campaigners are, however, also calling on all the brands that sourced from Rana Plaza or Bangladesh to pay into a Donor Trust Fund. It is, they maintian, the only way for the survivors and victims families to truly receive the compensation they so greatly need. The following companies have already made a contribution: Bonmarché; BRAC USA, including donations from The Children’s Place, Walmart, Asda and the Walmart Foundation (USD2,205,000); C&A Foundation (Euro500,000); Camaïeu; El Corte Inglés; Inditex; KiK (Euro500,000); Loblaw; LPP S.A.; Mango; Mascot; N Brown Group; Premier Clothing and Primark (USD1,000,000). The Clean Clothes Campaign and Labour Start are running a petition calling on all the other brands involved to pay up too. Please sign it. As far as the campaigners are concerned, these companies still have not contributed and still need to Pay Up!: Adler Modemärkte; Kids for Fashion; Ascena Retail; Manifattura Corona; Auchan; Matalan; Benetton; NKD; Carrefour; PWT (Texman); Cato Fashions; Yes Zee; Grabalok; Gueldenpfennig and J C Penney The ultimate tragedy of Rana is that workers had complained about a large crack in the wall and engineers had declared the building unsound. They were still forced to work. Some experts believe it should cost these companies less than 10 cents per garment to ensure their factories are safe. While the Bangladeshi government plays an equally, if not more important role, in ensuring labour laws are discussed, determined and put into place, consumers and shareholders should be pressing the brands to lead that change. Hello, consumer.  |
| Women against fundamentalism reunited Posted: 04 Apr 2014 01:09 AM PDT
For some, 2014 is a momentous year. It marks, for example, 25 years since the Rushdie Affair and the birth of the feminist inspired coalition Women Against Fundamentalism (WAF). And, as Sukhwant Dhaliwal explained in a recent article for Media Diversity, what came to be known as the 'Rushdie Affair' was a pivotal moment in the history of British multiculturalism. 'As Julia Bard described at the time, the Ayatollah's fatwa 'broke the left and liberal consensus on anti-racism'. Should people defend the free speech of the protestors as 'express(ions) of their culture' or be seen to be siding with racists by depicting these actions as 'barbaric'?’ And then at 'a packed International Women's Day event in Southall, on 8 March 1989, Southall Black Sisters (SBS) spoke out against the rise of fundamentalism in Britain and highlighted the implications for women. 'They issued a statement in defence of Salman Rushdie, the right to free speech and the right to not have their lives determined by so called 'community leaders' – invariably men. 'The event triggered the establishment of Women Against Fundamentalism.' This June some of the members of WAF will launch a book that celebrates and discusses the on-going challenges faced by a feminism concerned with fighting both religious fundamentalism and racism. This book maps the development of the organisation over the past 25 years, through the life stories and political reflections of some of its members. It focuses on the ways in which lived contradictions have been reflected in their politics. Their stories describe the pathways that led them to WAF, and the role WAF has played in their lives and in the different forms of politicial activism in which they have engaged. Discussing feminist activism from a wide variety of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, contributors highlight the complex relationships of belonging that are at the heart of contemporary social life – including the problems of exclusionary political projects of belonging. They also explore the ways in which anti-fundamentalism relates to broader feminist, anti-racist and other emancipatory political ideologies and movements. The personal stories at the centre of this book are those of women whose lives enact the complexities of multiple (if shifting and contingent) mutually constitutive axes of power and difference. Much of their concern therefore relates to crossing the boundaries of collectivity and practising a ‘dialogical transversal politics’ that has developed as an alternative to identity politics. Co-author Sukhwant Dhaliwal joined WAF in 1995. She has worked with Asian women’s organisations challenging domestic violence in both Newham and Manchester and has worked with Southall Black Sisters. Over the last ten years, she has completed research projects encompassing a number of equality strands including: racism and racist violence; disability; age; religion and belief; and gender. Nira Yuval-Davis is a founding member of WAF. She is the director of the Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London and has been the president of an ISA Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations. Her written and edited books include: Racialized Boundaries; Gender and Nation; and The Politics of Belonging. She is currently leading a research team on Everyday Situated Bordering as part of an EU research programme. Sadly, WAF fell by the wayside, but, as this book shows, even during periods of inactivity, WAF has continued as a source of inspiration, a resource for political analysis and a method for political engagement.  |
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