#BTColumn – The struggle is universal

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Jade Gibbons

In his letter to the early Roman church, Paul declares that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The word ‘all’ refers to both males and females.

This is noteworthy because it seems that the current discourse on exploitation is one-sided and unjustly paints males as the sole perpetrators and females as the only victims.

However, whenever exploitation intersects with commerce, we see that all are involved as enablers, co-conspirators, perpetrators, victims, and survivors. Take for example Bangladesh’s garment industry and the Rana Plaza collapse.

In 2013, a complex that housed several garment factories collapsed, resulting in the death of 1,134 garments workers and injury to thousands more.

The majority of these workers (85-90 per cent) were women. A significant portion of them had migrated from rural villages to work in these factories for a chance at a better life.

Prior to the collapse, the building had been deemed unsafe. However, workers were forced to go back to work by their supervisors, as deadlines had to be met. They went to work and shortly after the workday began, the building collapsed.

In the aftermath, several reasons have been given for the incident.

The one that stands out to me is the one that shows how interconnected we are: the demand for fast fashion and low-cost clothing motivated minimal oversight by clothing brands.

The factories in this plaza were suppliers of Western brands. They needed to keep costs down and meet deadlines because that is what was required of them.

Now, one may be tempted to argue that this is an example of the patriarchy exploiting and killing women. After all, the owner of the plaza was a man and the CEOs of several of the Western brands are men.

However, a holistic view forces us to see how women are complicit in the oppression of other women. Why are Western brands trying to keep the cost down? Because you, the consumer, want cheap clothes.

The positive outcome of the horrible event is that working conditions for garment workers have improved.

A 2018 article by the Guardian highlighted that “thousands of factory owners have invested in fire doors, sprinkler systems, electrical upgrades and stronger foundations, eliminating more than 97,000 identified safety hazards in facilities”.

Your clothes are more expensive now because their working conditions have improved.

The garment industry in Bangladesh is actually a really good thing. Labowitz and Baumann-Pauly in Business as Usual is Not an Option: Supply Chains and Sourcing after Rana Plaza highlight that “since the arrival of the garment sector in the late 1970s, [Bangladesh’s] poverty rate has fallen from 70 per cent to less than 40 per cent, accompanied by increases in life expectancy, literacy and per capita food intake”.

The status of women in Bangladesh has also risen, and this is a direct result of their participation in this industry.

This is evidenced by slogans such as “Female workers are the heart of ready-made garments. Save Them to Save the Industry.”

In closing, I’d like to highlight that there were also men working in those factories. Mothers lost sons on that day. Children lost fathers. The Rana Plaza collapse is therefore a good example of the universality of the struggle against exploitation, in all its forms.

In Barbados, Section 3 of the Employment Sexual Harassment (Prevention) Act 2017-21 outlines sexual harassment as: a) the use of sexually suggestive words, comments, jokes, gestures or actions that annoy, alarm or abuse a person; b) the initiation of uninvited physical contact with a person; c) the initiation of unwelcome sexual advances or the requests of sexual favours from a person; d) asking a person intrusive questions that are of a sexual nature that pertain to that person’s private life; e) transmitting sexually offensive writing or material of any kind; f) making sexually offensive telephone calls to a person; or g) any other sexually suggestive conduct of an offensive nature in circumstances where a reasonable person would consider the conduct to be offensive.

It also emphasizes that a single incident is sufficient to be considered sexual harassment. Of importance to note is that the Act does not assign a gender to who can be classed as a complainant. Neither does it assign a gender to who can be classed as a respondent.

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making.