NEWS - 2025 Mental health is not a luxury. It is a human/basic right. “Because each working day is stressful, I usually cry when I get home from work.” This is how a woman working in Indonesia’s footwear industry described her daily life. On the other side of Asia, a garment worker in Bangalore shared how intense production pressure affects not just her health, but her sleep and appetite. These are not isolated experiences. They are symptoms of a much larger crisis, one that continues to be neglected in global conversations about work: the mental health of women workers in labor intensive industries. This May, in conjunction with Mental Health Awareness Month, TURC Indonesia, Cividep India, FEMNET and SÜDWIND-Institute are releasing the fifth edition of the G*OSH newsletter, which puts the spotlight on the invisible toll that precarious work environments take on women in the garment and footwear sectors in Indonesia and India. Despite growing global recognition of mental health, it remains largely absent from occupational safety discussions in factories. Most OSH policies still focus narrowly on physical hazards, while workers silently endure chronic stress, burnout, and emotional strain. For women, the burden is even heavier: after long shifts in high-pressure factory environments, many return home to unpaid care responsibilities, with little or no support system. This edition of G*OSH amplifies these realities through the voices of workers themselves. It also documents critical efforts by TURC Indonesia and Cividep India to change the narrative: from conducting mental health training for trade unions in Banten Province, Indonesia, to rolling out gender-responsive OSH guidelines for brands and factories in India, to providing health checks for informal home-based workers in Jakarta. These initiatives push us to redefine what worker well-being really means and who gets to be protected. Download the newsletter now! back
