A few years back, there was a move to enact a law on modern slavery and worker exploitation. Consultations were held and submissions received.
The draft law was commended as being more progressive and offering better protection than its counterparts in Australia, Europe and North America. However, the momentum seems to have slackened, with no update currently available on where it stands.
We recently wrote to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Carmel Sepuloni, and inquired where we stand with regards to a law on modern slavery.
And yet, big fashion names in Aotearoa rake in millions of dollars of revenue each year. Recent reports have shown that in Aotearoa, revenue in the apparel market amounts to approximately US$4.34 billion. And what’s more, the market is expected to grow even further. PWC even reported that sales in the apparel industry in Aotearoa exceeded pre-Covid-19 levels.
Out of the 75 million women garment workers around the world, only 2 per cent are paid a living wage. Garment workers, of which nearly 80 per cent are women, work long and hard to make our clothes – the clothes that are sold by leading fashion brands in Aotearoa.
Despite the long hours and often unsafe working conditions, these women continue to be paid a pittance – woefully low wages that are absolutely insufficient for them and their families to lead a life with dignity.
Day in, day out these women go into the factories, set themselves up in cramped spaces, hunched over sewing machines.
They are surrounded by vibrant bolts of cloth, pretty buttons, and luxuriously soft material. They work tirelessly as elegant clothes displayed in leading fashion brands in distant cities come alive under their nimble fingers.
At the end of the day, they go back to a small, confined space they call home; their fingers tired, and their hearts aching as they greet their hungry children.
Earlier this year we interviewed some of the women who make our clothes in factories in Bangladesh.
We heard from Shaila, who was compelled to go to work at the tender age of 11 due to extreme poverty, and still cannot afford nutritious food for her family. She gets beaten for getting sick and needing a break from tireless hours.
Then there is Nilufa Yesmin, a survivor of the Rana Plaza tragedy that killed more than 1300 garment workers, who said she sees only darkness in her future due to sickness and injuries from the incident.
These are the women who make our clothes. This is their lived reality.
For the average consumer all this may trigger a sense of guilt when you next pop into a clothing store. This is not what is intended.
As Sabina, who works in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, enthused, “We want to thank [our international supporters] as they happily wear our clothes ... They should stand beside us, allow us to work, and if we get a higher wage, we will be happy ... We feel happy when they buy the clothes we make and wear them.”
I, personally, feel a responsibility to push for a fair wage for women like Sabina.
The thing is it isn’t just on the New Zealand Government. These fashion brands hold immense power in choosing which suppliers they retain. Hence, the brands can choose to go with suppliers who pay a living wage or take steps to ensure that the suppliers they are working with, are paying a living wage.
Oxfam Aotearoa’s What She Makes campaign seeks to address this very issue, by working with brands to ensure that a living wage is paid to the women who make our clothes.
A living wage will ensure that these women and their families can afford nutritious food, clean water, decent housing, education, healthcare, childcare, clothing, and savings for unexpected events.
- Shalomi Daniel was an Attorney at Law before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and currently works for Oxfam Aotearoa as economic and gender justice lead.
