Sportswear giants like Adidas, New Balance, Nike and Puma are leaving Cambodian garment workers to ‘languish’ below the poverty line, a new report claims.
Published by the international women’s rights group ActionAid in collaboration with the Centre for Alliance of Labour and Human Rights, the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, and the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, ‘Stitched Under Strain’ describes how long-term wage loss, made worse by the pandemic, has become the ‘daily reality’ for workers in the nation of Southeast Asia’s largest employment sector.
“What emerges is an alarming indictment of a global fashion industry that puts profit above the rights of garment workers in factories across Cambodia,” said the report.
Despite a US $ 10 increase in the minimum wage that has been mandated by law during the past three years, out of the 300 workers surveyed by researchers, 25 per cent indicated a drop in their monthly take-home income, excluding overtime, since 2020.
Most respondents to the poll reported having less money after accounting for overtime, with the payouts themselves falling by more than 60 per cent between 2020 and 2023.
Additionally, there aren’t enough orders being generated because to the worldwide recession. According to trade data, Cambodia’s garment exports totaled US $ 5.49 billion in the first eight months of the year, a decrease of about 19 per cent from the same period in 2017.
The sector’s 800,000 mostly female workers, who are heavily reliant on this supplemental income to make ends meet, have gone from earning, on average, an additional US $ 36 before the pandemic hit, to an average of US $ 12 per month in 2023.
