News - 2023

#OhMyG*OSH! First issue of the G*OSH newsletter on gender-equitable occupational health and safety.

Gender equity and occupational health and safety need to be thought together, especially for textile and footwear factories where women are predominantly employed. We started implementing this with a multi-actor partnership (MAP) on gender-responsive occupational health and safety launched in December 2021. A lot has happened since then!

Factory floor in Bangalore, India

© FEMNET

A voice for workers

This article was originally published 10th November 2022 on the site of the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung.

Around 60 to 75 million people work in the textile and garment industry worldwide. The majority of them are women who work and live in strongly patriarchal societies such as Bangladesh or India. Supported by trade unions, only few of them dare to speak up against labour rights violations. As spaces for organised labour continue to shrink, freedom of expression is more and more trampled down.

Call for tenders for a study on minimum wages in Sindh Province in Pakistan in January and February 2023

Research on labor rights violations for potential complaints under the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains (LKSG)

The German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains (LKSG) has come into force in January 2023. It obliges companies with more than 3000 employees to exercise human rights due diligence with regards to their supply chain. In particular, the right to an adequate wage and freedom of association are protected under the law (§ 2 II No. 6, 8, 11). In this context, the German NGOs FEMNET (member of the Clean Clothes campaign) and ECCHR (the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights) are working on a project to see how the law can help to address labor rights violations in garment factories.