Playing an important role in its fight for decent work and justice in the global garment industry, Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) releases an important tool in partnership with trade union members in Asia.
AFWA is an international alliance of trade unions and labour rights’ activists who are working together to demand a living wage for garment workers.
The tool is part of a training programme, based on AFWA’s Safe Circle Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (GBVH) Prevention Methodology, and articulated within a Freedom of Association framework.
Safe Circles: A Transformative Worker Led Approach to GBVH Prevention in Garment Production Lines consists of modules drawing on years of AFWA’s and partners’ experiences, prepared with the help of AFWA’s Women’s Leadership Committee (WLC).
The AFWA informed that based on democratic and feminist principles, it facilitates women workers and women trade union leaders to move towards strategic, worker-led interventions and create conditions that enable women workers in garment factories to challenge existing gendered hierarchies and contribute to progressive transformation.
AFWA believes that GBVH is corrosive to women workers’ sense of self, and acts as a barrier to ensuring Freedom of Association and demanding a living wage.
This training programme and tool build upon AFWA’s women-centred work over the years, some of which are as follows:
- Formulation of the first-ever women-centred living wage
- Publication of ground-breaking factory-level research reports exposing GBVH in H&M, GAP and Walmart, wherein it defined the “Spectrum of Violence” in Asia’s garment supply chains.
- Founding of the WLC composed of women trade union leaders across production countries in Asia.
AFWA has welcomed collaboration with brands and interested organisations in implementing this new training initiative.
